It has been 18 years since Clarence Thomas came under attack in a concentrated media assault because of the grave crime he had committed: being African American and conservative at the same time. Now, Michael Steele is being targeted in a similar fashion, having his leadership undercut by Clintonistas like Carville, Begala, and Emanuel as they fuel their absurd ‘Rush is the leader’ propaganda. This is not about Limbaugh, who has been a conservative voice for 20 years and has never been made the center of attack before. No, this is about Steele, and the danger the new RNC chairmen represents to the liberal establishment. Just look at some of the coordinated effort by the MSM:
What’s happening to Michael Steele is what always happens to any conservative who happens to be a minority. Whether it was Clarence Thomas or Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal and now Michael Steele, the liberal establishment simply cannot sit by while minority faces espouse a conservative belief. It is the most threatening prospect to left wing power: the possibility that women, African Americans, Hispanics, and others would begin to embrace individual liberty rather than government dependency. To awaken these communities to their own potential, to empower these groups to lift themselves up, to show them that they don’t need the Orwellian hand of government to take care of them, is the greatest danger to the existence of the Democrat Party and to left wing ideology. Minority republican figures take attacks that no other politicians have to face, Thomas, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Sarah Palin are just a few of the many individuals attacked simply because their race or gender pose a political problem to the left. The oppressors and the race hustlers will do anything to cling to their power and to their relevancy. As long as they can poison the minds of entire subgroups of the population, as long as they can make people believe they need the hand of government in all aspects of their lives, they will continue the assault on those community members who break free. Those like Michael Steele, who grew up in hard times is a poor African American community, who realizes that empowering the individual is the best way to change communities like the one he was raised in. As long as there are people like Chairman Steele who attempt to break free of the cult of dependency, and try to bring those in his community with him, there will be the left wing establishment, ready and willing to destroy them.
The question is, will we allow them to succeed at destroying Michael Steele? Will we be duped into a circular firing squad? Will we sit silent as Steele and Limbaugh bicker while a generation of Americans are robbed by this president? Less then 4 weeks on the job, there are those on the right who want Steele out at the RNC. The first black chairman, ousted in less than a month. Is that the image the right wants the country to see? That we are so intolerant that we allow Michael Steele zero time to undertake the massive task he has been handed. If we do, we are playing right into the hands of the race hustlers, the Clintonistas, the cult of dependency.
Stand by our chairman, let him know that you support his efforts to broaden this party and form a governing coalition for the 21st century. To do otherwise will simply aide the left in doing what they want most: turn Michael Steele into Clarence Thomas.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
You can add Jon Stewart to that list, too.
The whole Steele/Rush back and forth was his opening act last night … mostly he was arguing that Steele was right to criticize him, but is weaker than Rush and had to back down.
The easiest way to know what the current democratic talking points are is to just watch 5 minutes of the daily show.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Rush is a clown. I have no qualms saying up with Steele and
down with Limbaugh.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Steele is simply not up to the job. He is a gift to the Democrats. The Republicans would be wise to find a way to get rid of him. Baby.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I don’t think we will help them succeed in destroying Steele, I think Steele will succeed in destroying himself. First he states that the RNC should look at assisting challengers to incumbent GOP Senators. Then he goes off and says foolish comments about Rush – and then follows with a pathetic excuse for him saying the wrong thing. While the media and the White House are surely fueling the fire, Michael Steele has not helped himself, at all, since being elected Chairman…
March 4th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Rush picking a fight with Steele over, well, nothing really just shows how unbelievably tone deaf Rush is politically. Rush is the lightning rod, he attracts strong supporters but he also attracts an enormous amount of criticism. His “job” — assuming he is about supporting the conservative movement and not himself, which his over-reaction to Steele’s comments calls into question — is to absorb the criticism, so other, more important targets are left alone (like, oh say the RNC chairman). By forcing an apology from Steele, Rush has just validated all of the Democratic Party talking points of the last six weeks. Great move if you are only in this for yourself and your ratings. Bad move if you are trying to advance a small government
March 4th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
“Who’s the leader?” is a silly fight to pick. Nobody is the leader — American political parties (especially the “out” party) don’t have single leaders in the way the Europeans do.
That said — I don’t see this as an attack on Steele at all. The Dems are trying, very wisely in my opinion, to make Limbaugh the public face of the Republican Party.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
The victim attitude in this post is ridiculous. The attacks on Jindal and Steele have nothing to do with race.
Palin and Thomas were clearly affirmative action appointees, and were simply not the best qualified for their positions. That is why their attacks seemed so aggressive.
Were the rights attacks on Harriet Meirs based on her gender? Of course not.
The Democrats never unreasonably* attacked Colin Powell, Condi Rice, J.C. Watts, etc.
Stop being a victim. Quit playing the race card.
*Yes they were attacked, but the attacks were generally fair game – that’s politics.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
This is eerily reminiscent of how the left acts when somebody criticizes Obama. Play the race card!
Michael Steele opened this can of worms. He fumbled – horribly – four weeks into his new job and is causing a huge rift in the party he’s supposed to be helping to heal. But let’s just gloss over that fact because he’s black!
This is exactly why I opposed Steele becoming the head of this party. I think Rush is a horrible “leader” or “face” or whatever of the GOP, but the way Steele handled this whole thing was by stepping in a big, steaming pile and then shooting himself in the foot afterwards. Not very becoming of a leader.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
so when rev. wright and his ilk called thomas and powell uncle toms, that was fair game?
mike malloy’s ‘apu from the simpsons’ accent attack on jindal was fair game?
March 4th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Sarah Palin is not a minority.
Other than that, good article
March 4th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
matt C, that is a blind way of looking at things.
he has been chairmen for 3 1/2 weeks. what is supposed to do walk on water?
the fact is there are those like matt c who opposed steele and now are jumping at the lefty attacks on him as a chance to usurp him.
tragic and wrong. steele is the best thing that has happened in a long time. the knuckle draggers like C want to go back to the duncan’s of the world.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Steele has been publicly castrated by Limbaugh, as have a couple of House members who dare to criticize the gas bag.
It isn’t some Democratic conspiracy, of simply the lack of alternatives that are making Limbaugh the head of the GOP, it is the craven cowardice of GOP members.
Who ever has the stones to Sister Souljah this guy will instantly have a ton of credibility in the leadership department.
An I agree with #7. No one on earth would have nominated someone like Clarance Thomas to the SC if it werent for the fact that he was black, and Bush Sr. wanted to appoint a black to replace Thurgood Marshall. The sexual harrassment charges against him were sincere and almost certainly true. Heck, even the guy who led the charge in his defense has admitted as much.
Yeah, thie is a really lame, whiny post, trying to play the victim card.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
I believe Rush is mistaken to think that the reason the Liberal media is singling him out for attack is that his
conservative message threatens them or that he’s not afraid to call the Obama administration out. There are plenty of other
conservative voices out there getting the message out and questionaing Obama. The truth is that they’re singling out Rush because
he’s such an easy target! Polling data suggests that he’s very polarizing. Rush admittedly is unpopular with independents/moderates and espeically women and the MSM is just capitalizing on the opporunity to make sure he doesn’t make any inroads with them. We don’t go around
attacking moderate and well liked Democrats. We attack the Micheal Moores of the party because it’s so easy! Do we discuss the
merits of Moore’s films or the greater liberal philosphy that he promotes? No! We could care less what he says because he is our
caricature of the liberal movement. Rush is the lefts. Rush is trumping the conservative message whether he intends to or not.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
oh man its tano again, i guess huffingtonpost was all filled up today so this clown ventured here.
max’s post is a call to rally to steele and not allow the cheap attacks from kaine and co. on the first black chairman go unanswered.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
great article max!
March 4th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Well said tim.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
great post, this happens every time a black republican speaks out, probably will happen when mike williams replaces KBH in the senate too.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Guys,
A major reason for this whole blowup is strictly as a diversion. “Hey, don’t look at what an incompetent boob Obama is. Don’t dwell upon the massive ethical problems involving senior Democratic officials. Focus on this, instead.”
As long as the left can keep us talking about ourselves, they don’t have to defend what a rotten job they have been doing.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
marK — your point is well taken, but at the same time this ultimately is Rush Limbaugh’s fault for playing directly into the Dem party talking points. No, he shouldn’t be the focus because it isn’t in the best interest of the GOP, but it IS in the best interest of Rush Limbaugh, and he is just as responsible for milking this dustup as Obama is.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Sean,
What good is it to point fingers? As long as we are arguing amongst ourselves over totally meaningless topics, the left has a free hand.
Do you think for one split second that they care one way or the other if Limbaugh is our leader? No, not one bit. They only care because arguing about it keeps us off balance.
Steele fell right into their trap. Well, we all make mistakes. Let’s hope that is his last one of this magnitude. Hopefully he has learned his lesson.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I am reminded of something that happened several decades ago. The Emergency Broadcast System ran a weekly test. A technician would take a tape out of a vault and run it. This would exercise the system to see if all was working.
Well, one week the technician accidentally ran the wrong tape. It wasn’t the tape for the test. It was the one for the real emergency. It ordered all radio and televisions stations to drop their regular programming and hook into the EBS.
After the excitement had died down, the director of the EBS held a news conference about the incident. He was asked if he was going to fire the technician. “No”, was the reply.
“Are you going to at least re-assign him?”
“No”
“Why not?”
“He will never make that mistake again.”
That pretty much sums up my feelings about Michael Steele at the moment. His momentary lapse in judgment has created a totally unnecessary distraction. Should he be let go? No. He’ll never make that mistake again.
Now if he were to make it a habit….
March 4th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Good point marK, if I were fired every time I made a mistake, I’d be on the unemployment line. Not to get into another conest, but all of our major candidates have made mistakes. I am more interested that they will not repeat their mistakes rather than the mistakes or short-comings in the future as long as I am satisfied that they have learned from them. That is in part why although, I have a favorite candidate, I have not officially joined a camp. Part of my decision (not all) will be based on the ability of each candidate to repair his or her weakness. Since there is still time before the nomination, each candidate has a chance at my support.
March 4th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Steele let the CNN clown say that republicans are like Nazi and he didn’t respond and now the fault is the Limbaugh?
March 4th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Steele let the CNN clown say that republicans are like Nazi and he didn’t respond and now is Limbaugh fault?
March 4th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
This whole manufactured controversy is so hilarious. Now if some in the GOP would kindly refrain from doing slapstick pratfalls in front of the camera in fear of Limbaugh’s high disapproval ratings.
Here’s the deal. The Obama administration cannot defend their policies and thus need a distraction. They recognize that they may well lose the arguments over bailouts, tax hikes, porcine spending bills, and massive deficits as far as the eye can see. So they’re resorting to pointing to the right and screaming, “Hey, look out over there!”
They need to make it about what they hold for unpopular figures on the right so the public quits thinking about the unpopular Dem leaders like San Fran Nan and Harry Reid.
Meanwhile, they’re raising interest in open-minded people to listen to Limbaugh — thus exposing new listeners to the conservative ideas they are permanently shielded from by the media and establishment academia.
Similarly, media liberals are even more eager to hear from Republican “leaders” (elected representatives) on the topic of Rush. And from there, it’s easy for the Republican leaders to articulate points of agreement with Mt. Rushmore.
March 4th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
The Rush Limbaugh flap has all the appearances of a “Kombinatsia” operation engineered by high level Democrat operatives Carville, Axelrod, and Emanuel. They are trying to replicate in a way Carville’s strategy back in the ’90s of getting the MSM to portray Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Gary Bauer as the centers of gravity and poster boys of the GOP. Quite frequently they would be invited guests on the Sunday morning talk shows and the press guys would play to them as the “real leaders” of the GOP; and of course that really played to the megalomania that characterized these guys. That worked back then largely because the GOP Congressional and Party leadership set back and allowed it to happen. Maybe they didn’t understand what was really going on, but it any case it was slow poison and did serious long-term damage to the GOP in multiple ways. The Dems and their MSM allies are trying this tactic again, this time with Limbaugh. It is an attempt to detract from any attempt by the Party to improve its position and to incite turmoil in the ranks. They are playing to Limbaugh’s penchant for histrionic megalomania.
March 4th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Mr. Steele’s momentary lapse in judgment caused this problem. It is up to Mr. Steele to fix it. And I think the best way for him to do that is through humor. “So Rush is the leader of the party? Well that certainly makes my job a lot easier.”
“So Rush is the leader of our party? Well maybe your party leader, Michael Moore needs to debate our party leader.”
Turn about is always fair play.
March 4th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
10 – Seconded.
March 4th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Steele was the antedote to the real idiot who was in the lead at the time.
Consider the laughing stock the party would be if their chair’s claim to
fame was the song Barack the Magic Negro. Steele’s victory saved the
Party’s bacon, lest we forget.
March 5th, 2009 at 9:00 am
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