RSS Feed MenuFormer RNC chairman Jim Nicholson criticizes Michael Steele for his side activities, including book-writing.
But the real problem is not that Steele has written a book – it’s what the book says.
This site has been a long-time champion of the RNC chairman. He’s fresh, engaging, and brave. But what we most expected from him is that he’d broaden the party. His new book’s 12-step plan for Republican recovery amounts to a formula for narrowing the party into the fundraising arm of the tea party movement.
Steele opens his book with a round of internal criticism of the GOP under George W. Bush. Unusual for a party chairman – but OK. But notice what he does not criticize the party for
- No criticism for doing nothing as middle class incomes stagnated between 2000 and 2007.
- No criticism for presiding over the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
- No criticism for poor management of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- No criticism except by gentlest indirection of the many congressional scandals since 1994.
- No criticism of the partners and enablers of Jack Abramoff, many of whom remain active in GOP leadership to this day.
Instead what we get is pure talk radio ideology – and Sarah Palin fantasy.
Consider this: if government pays your healthcare bills, it will have a vested interest in regulating your health. And the most direct approach to keeping you ‘healthy’ – as the government defines it – would be to ration your care. Unless you take care of your health as the government dictates – if you don’t lose weight or quit smoking, or exercise enough, or stop eating fast food – there could be consequences. After all, the bureaucrats will say, why should you get the very best treatment for your heart disease if you won’t take the time to lose those extra twenty pounds. That wouldn’t be fair.
The government already pays half the healthcare bills in the country through Medicare, Medicaid, and veteran’s benefits. And it seems only yesterday that Chairman Steele was pledging to fight to the knife to halt any reduction in that spending. Now it turns out that Medicare is the first step on the slippery slope to death panels for the fat.
The organizational details that a party might expect from its chairman: missing. Instead, Steele blithely cheers Arlen Specter’s defection from the GOP.
And within our party, we need to make it clear that from now on there will be a price to pay for abandoning conservative principles. The grassroots – activists from tea parties to townhalls – have sent a message: no more ‘fake-it-until-you-make-it’ conservatives. The days of merely espousing conservative principles and then, once elected, governing or legislating without principle, are over. At least one senator has already got this message – Arlen Specter.
Specter did indeed get the message. Having got the message, he walked across the hall, reaffiliated as a Democrat, and provided President Obama with the 60th vote for Obamacare. So that worked out real well! If Obamacare passes, the Democratic national committee should raise funds to erect a statue to Pat Toomey over a plaque: “The man who made it all possible.”
That’s something that a party chairman ought to be able to see. A party chairman ought to be the leader of all the Republicans, Specter as well as Toomey, Mark Kirk as well as Sarah Palin, talk radio and FrumForum.
In his day to day work, Michael Steele understands that and has acted on it. Yet his book endorses and ratifies the party-wreckers, not the party-builders. It’s a big disappointment, and not just as a reading experience.
franco 2 // Jan 9, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Steele isn’t a cause, he is a symptom. Being sympathetic to the Tea Party movement,it is pretty plain to see that Steele has his finger to the wind and is pandering.
Having alienated every last conservative to the point where they have pretty much moved on, Steele now alienates his remaining base (Frum et al) by trying to woo the conservatives back. Worse yet, Steele, having come late to the tea party as it were, is not up to speed on the abstractions and is clumsily damaging Republicans by publicly admitting too much.The time for this kind of talk was 9 months ago. Now it just looks like Steele is woefully behind on reading his mail.
But the statists like Frum are even worse, if that is possible.”Specter did indeed get the message. Having got the message, he walked across the hall, reaffiliated as a Democrat, and provided President Obama with the 60th vote for Obamacare. So that worked out real well!” Frum says.
Frum insists on nurturing and protecting renegades, craven opportunists, backstabbers and serial traitors, like Arlen Specter for DECADES. Frum doesn’t mind being betrayed and blackmailed for every important vote. Frum doesn’t blame Specter for being nonchalantly disloyal, after all he does it all the time! Give him a break! Ultimately, Frum is fine with politicians who literally have no scruples at all.
Decades of extortion, double-crossing and public bashing of Republicans is fine with Frum, and instead of focusing on his own mistake, indulging this shell of a man Specter time and again, he blames those who have decided to draw the line with this political miscreant in their midst. They are the stupid ones according to Frum’s logic, because they didn’t allow Specter to abuse them any more.
It is clear that Frum and his friends need counseling for battered (political) wife syndrome.
teabag // Jan 9, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Steele has the “negro dialect” down pat. trouble is it’s hilariously dumb. The token black man in the GOP was an affirmative action pick and it sure shows.
franco 2 // Jan 9, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Glad to hear teabag sees the downside of affirmative action, a practice he no doubt has championed.
teabag // Jan 9, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Not so Franco.
ltoro1 // Jan 9, 2010 at 7:49 pm
I’m sorry, Arlen Spector is a party builder? Are you kidding me?
ltoro1 // Jan 9, 2010 at 7:52 pm
The fact that the government pays half the healthcare bills in the US is not something to brag about. It is also not inconsistent to expect that someone who has paid their Medicare taxes for up to forty years of their life to to recieve what they were promised during their working years.
TAZ // Jan 9, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Yes, Steele is late in his approach.
But who besides the base is left in the Republican party? And the base is only still around because they want the Label “Republican” vs. “3rd Party”.
I was in the Republican party, still a registered Republican, but the Republican party is in no way the party / a party I would support.
Who is going to step up and take control of this party?
canadianmoderate // Jan 9, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Wow, I can’t believe Michael Steele is against Medicare again. Am I hearing this right? I know that he was against Medicare for years, then he was (aggressively) pro-Medicare during the health care debates, and now he has returned to being against it. Does he not recognize the problem here? I just can’t understand how he defends contradictory positions so strongly.
mbilinsky // Jan 10, 2010 at 12:04 am
It’s fairly easy for Steele to defend contradictory positions. Basically, when Barack Obama supports a position that the GOP historically supports, Steele opposes it. Then when making a statement not directly criticizing Obama, he goes back to supporting it.
Contradicting yourself is part and parcel of a political platform that has no constructive ideas and simply defines itself by opposition to and criticism of one man.
handworn // Jan 10, 2010 at 12:32 am
“Frum insists on nurturing and protecting renegades, craven opportunists, backstabbers and serial traitors, like Arlen Specter for DECADES.”
Franco, I do my honest best to be calm and polite and to try to see at least one truth in every poster’s ideas in any political forum I hang out in. As a Pennsylvanian, a gunowner, a family man, a supporter of Specter, a former Republican, a former Democrat and a former and current Independent, I can still find no more respectful thing to say to you than this: I think your brain dried up years ago. If I’m wrong, then go read Emerson’s “Self-Reliance.” And like him, be a heretic to everyone. Support ideas you came up with yourself, not parties. And never trust any set of ideas that coincide so perfectly with any one group’s.
franco 2 // Jan 10, 2010 at 9:47 am
handworn,
Reflexive non-conformity is another version of conformity. You might want to look at that issue. Specter doesn’t follow his own ideas, he follows the wind. It is clear to everyone but you, apparently. Even Democrats loathe him. Please tell me how Arlen Specter, who will be 80 next month ( be sure to send him a nice present) helps you as a Pennsylvanian by insisting he must represent you from whatever party ID that will have him. Isn’t there anyone else in the whole state who might be better? Has this creep ever considered, um, RETIREMENT? No, it is clear that Specter is out for himself. Another self-aggrandizing phony addicted to attention and power. You are naive and willfully ignorant, and you draw wrong conclusions on scant evidence. And please, don’t try to think of something calm and polite to say, it’s sickeningly transparent.
btimsah // Jan 10, 2010 at 2:10 pm
None of that crap Steele wrote deals with the fundamental issue’s at hand. Why has the Republican party’s message gone to crap?
A party which used to stand for non-interventionism, should be able to accept the fact that our interventionism has caused the terror threat. Unless we change our foreign policy we will be looking at perpetual war.
Until this Republican party can understand how our military interventionism makes it incompatible with any message of limited government, it will not return to prominence.
Unless a Ron Paul or someone like him is able to change the party from within. Something that would terrify a David Frum. The warfare state has destroyed any message of constitutional freedom the Republican party ever had.
pineview1997 // Jan 10, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Hey David,
Interesting post. what would be your policy suggestions for the bullet points you raised above?
* No criticism for doing nothing as middle class incomes stagnated between 2000 and 2007.
* No criticism for presiding over the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
* No criticism for poor management of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
* No criticism except by gentlest indirection of the many congressional scandals since 1994.
* No criticism of the partners and enablers of Jack Abramoff, many of whom remain active in GOP leadership to this day.
Besides from offering criticism, what changes should the GOP be championing here?
rocklobster // Jan 11, 2010 at 2:39 pm
The true and sad fact is that Steele could have filled all of the pages of his book with what the last administration failed to do – as pointed out above. Then add on all of the lying about the war and why my son was there and the non-transparency when Cheney met with the oil men about energy. Heck he could write a trilogy on what they didn’t do. Really sad chapter in the US’s history. It can only get better now. And, for God, we owe that thanks.
jdipeso // Jan 11, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Steele recently raised an interesting question about the GOP’s fitness to return to leadership. In spite of Steele’s stumbles, bumbles, and fumbles, it’s a question that party pooh-bahs should be pondering.
stevefromsacto // Jan 11, 2010 at 7:17 pm
“A party which used to stand for non-interventionism, should be able to accept the fact that our interventionism has caused the terror threat.”
Sadly, that’s just the beginning of the Republican hypocrisy.
A party which used to stand for fiscal responsibility spent eight years supporting President Bush in turning a budget surplus into the worst budget deficit (prior to the current one) in American history. Now suddenly they’ve become budget hawks again. It’s more likely that their new found fiscal conservatism is only because there’s a Democrat in the White House. I doubt they’d be saying much if McCain was president.
Republicans used to believe in limited government and individual freedom. But they supported Bush’s trashing of the Constitution in the name of security and they still support that concept. And they have no problem with government intruding into people’s lives when it comes to such things as abortion and homosexuality.
Now that the chairman of our party has drunk the Limbaugh Kool-Aide, things will only grow worse for our formerly Grand Old Party. To paraphrase the old joke: “They had to cancel the parade of Republican moderates. One of them broke his leg, and the other one couldn’t march.”
What’s sad is that the right-wing lemmings are taking the rest of us down with them and consigning our party to minority status for years to come.