I’m Part of the In Crowd
Those of you who have school-aged children (or were school-aged children yourselves) may understand what its like to be an outsider trying to fit in. Actually, kids and adults at some place in their lives find themselves trying to be a part of the “in crowd”. That clique of “cool kids” on the block (or the job) that always seemed to have it all. Money, friends, popularity, and most of all, power. Power is probably the most important attraction, as these were the “kids” who could seemingly get away with anything and catch all of the breaks. So you, in your pathetic desperation to be a part of something big, would compromise everything you were about to be a part of this group. When you were a kid, you slack off from your school work and let your grades slip. You’d become a troublemaker, perhaps taking up nasty habits like cutting class or smoking. As an adult you may find yourself adopting a devil-may-care attitude toward work, or taking positions that you don’t agree with. Anything to be a part of the “in crowd” because, after all, that’s the whole point. Everyone wants to be popular. Everyone wants to be loved, even if it means selling yourself out.
Enter current Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. In the four weeks since he’s been RNC chair it would seem, if you can believe a tenth of what has come out of his mouth, that he’s compromised just about every position that he’s held. It started with an interview with DL Hugely where he said this about Rush Limbaugh.
Rush is not the head of the Republican Party. He’s an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”
He later offered his mea culpa to Limbaugh, claiming to “have enormous respect for Rush” and conceding that he “was maybe a bit inarticulate”. While hardly the pinnacle of his ineptitude to that date, it certainly the most glaring. Then there was the GQ interview where he indicated his belief in abortion as a “choice”, and that people are “born” homosexual. These comments, particularly the one regarding abortion, also having to be quickly squashed via an RNC spokesperson as follows (from First Read).
“I am pro-life, always have been, always will be,” Steele said. ”I tried to present why I am pro life while recognizing that my mother had a ‘choice’ before deciding to put me up for adoption. I thank her every day for supporting life. The strength of the pro-life movement lies in choosing life and sharing the wisdom of that choice with those who face difficult circumstances. They did that for my mother and I am here today because they did. In my view Roe vs. Wade was wrongly decided and should be repealed. I realize that there are good people in our party who disagree with me on this issue. But the Republican Party is and will continue to be the party of life. I support our platform and its call for a Human Life Amendment. It is important that we stand up for the defenseless and that we continue to work to change the hearts and minds of our fellow countrymen so that we can welcome all children and protect them under the law.”
BTW, the Human Life Amendment that Steele mentions amount to essentially a Constitutional amendment to ban abortions. So that’s yet another flip-flop for the chairman.
So one would think at this point in the game that our hero Michael would give up on his quest to be part of the “in crowd”. However, as resilient as ever, he gives what would amount to perhaps his most bizarre interview yet. Guest hosting William Bennett’s national conservative radio program, he went on a pure tirade. He lambasted Republicans for inserting their own earmarks into the omnibus spending bill, compared Obama to Nixon, described the current political climate as “Armageddon”, blamed the media for all of the charges against him and the calls for him to step aside, and in the most mind-boggling example of relaying something as fact that you know is fiction, he gives his view of Global Warming.
“We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right?
Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long.”
Now let’s get a couple of facts all around. Greenland has been covered in ice for, like, FOREVER. Most of it lies north of the Artic Circle (that would be the NORTH POLE). Furthermore, scientists have noted that the average ocean temperature off of Greenland’s west coast has risen from 38.3 degrees Fahrenheit to 48.6 F, and glaciers have begun to retreat (see AP story http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9255431/ ). As for Iceland, it’s always had a somewhat more temperate climate than Greenland, and it is volcanically active.
And finally, let’s not forget the “hip-hop” image makeover he plans to give the GOP, wanting to apply the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings” and employing everyone including “one-armed midgets” to do it.
So you have Mr. Steele desperately trying to be one of the cool-kids, compromising everything about himself, and telling his audience what he thinks they want to hear. The problem is that he’s failing miserably. Several members of the RNC, including NC Republican Dr. Ada Hill, have called for him to resign. He’s been criticized by no less than Mike Huckabee, Tony Perkins, and Ken Blackwell, who gave the following according to the Washington Post.
“Chairman Steele needs to reread the Bible, the U.S. Constitution and the 2008 GOP Platform,” Blackwell said. “He then needs to get to work or get out of the way.”
So it’s obvious that Steele isn’t making many friends among the “cool kids” in the GOP. And much like most people who desperately crave popularity at any cost, he’s pretty much sold out everything he’s believed in, leaving himself a shell and sham of his former self. One can only feel sorry for Michael Steele, and wonder if it may indeed be a good idea for him to resign as RNC chair. He’s not doing the party any real service, and he’d clearly be much better off in a position where he can speak his mind freely, without the constraints of the conservative party platform. His only alternative is to continue to make a fool of himself trying to make Republicans like him, much as we used to do in High School when we wanted to hang with the “cool kids”. The thing of it is, though, as anyone who’s attended their High School reunion will attest to, the “cool kids” didn’t turn out so cool once they grew up.
Michael Steele GQ Interview
http://men.style.com/gq/blogs/gqeditors/2009/03/the-reconstruct.html
First Read Trackback
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/03/12/1833769.aspx?p=0
Michael Steele on William Bennett
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/16/steeles-tour-de-force-com_n_175317.html
Washington Post Story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR2009031203315.html?hpid=topnews
