Michael Steele needs to keep pretending that the RNC chairman's job is to be in the news because it only embarrasses him more. The traditional role of the RNC chairman is to raise money and work in devising campaign strategies. Not so with Michael Steele, who feels that it is the role of the RNC Chairman to put his foot in national politics and not so much raising money.
Read more below the fold.
Despite all this, Michael Steele is not a free spirit, he is still under the watchful criticism of a base who does not want to see the GOP change. Although I initially admired him for wanting to appeal to minorities more (this was before I lost all sympathy for the Republican party), I was taken aback at how everything he said and did was ridiculous and oddly comical. Probably the first thing that made me realize that the GOP was doomed to never move to embrace the center was when Michael Steele apologized to Limbaugh for criticizing his radio show. Then, he joked about the possibility of supporting primary challengers for Specter, Collins, and Snowe after they voted for the stimulus bill.
When Sonia Sotomayor was nominated, I facepalmed and tried to hold back a laugh as I read that Steele was saying that the party should be inductive and should not be "slammin' and rammin'" on her (those are his words, I swear). Although his choice of words was unfortunate, his underlying message was a good one...until he walked it back (a la Reid) when he guest-hosted Bill Bennett's radio show, saying to a caller:
STEELE: And apparently, the comments that she made that have been played up about, you know, the Latina woman being a better judge than the white male is something that she has said on numerous occasions. So this was not just the one and only time it was said. They’ve now found other evidences and other speeches, Trip, that she has made mention of this, this fact that her ethnicity, that her cultural background puts her in a different position as a judge to judge your case.
TRIP: Yep.
STEELE: And God help you if you’re a white male coming before her bench.
Yep, he adopted the conservative meme of obsessing on some comments she made at a college rather than her take on constitutional law.
You are probably asking, why am I giving all of this redundant backstory? It's because this is all a prelude to what Steele said yesterday on an interview for Univision.
You can read my source article here.
In this interview, he discussed immigration policies and the GOP. In the interview he cheapens the immigration debate by making it sound like all immigrants need to do is enter the country, fill out some paperwork, "have some apple pie", and get a job. Yes, he makes it sound so easy, like there is no complications in one's desire to cross the border. Perhaps he has never heard of Operation Gatekeeper, which has caused the death of unknown thousands of immigrants. Don't forget the homegrown anti-immigrant militias that have killed without regret. Also, there's Sheriff Arapio of Arizona who arrests Hispanics that he suspects are here illegally. But in Steele's world, all one needs to do is walk in the country, fill out the forms, and boom, you have nothing to fear.
STEELE: Number two, I think as I found with a lot of Hispanics, particularly those who have been her for several generations, they understand and respect the rule of law that is so important as a foundational principle of this country...I can sum it up for you this way, the party as I said is always the party, its been the party of assimilation and that is something that we believe in very firmly and basically what we should be saying is that there are rules that you need to get into the country, go the right door, fill out the right form, have some apple pie, hum a few bars of the star spangle banner and get to work, God bless you, and I think that that begins to set us on the right road to dealing with this issue.
Also, I was pretty miffed at the statement that the GOP is " the party of assimilation." Assimilation is defined as the process of a cultural group integrating itself in fully within a larger one. In respect to immigrants, this would mean giving up their language and a large portion of their culture just so they can "fit in."
Indeed, I do believe the GOP is the party of assimilation. They are the ones pushing to make English the one official language of our nation. When the swine flu pandemic (although the word "pandemic" sounds too dire) began, the GOP was the party pushing the president to close down the borders (ignorant of the fact that swine flu's patient zero was a Texan child).
I guess if you want to be in the GOP, you can be from any cultural background so long as you embrace their beliefs in American exceptionalism, supremacy of the English language, gutting welfare, and making the rich richer.
JOIN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY! RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!