Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Michael Steele Compares Self to Julius Caesar (seriously)

Outgoing RNC Chairman Michael Steele is not taking his loss sitting down. After losing his bid for a second term, he appears to be firing back at his critics and has laid the blame at the feet of the RNC itself. This comes as Reince Priebus was elected to be the next Chairman.


Steele famously (or infamously) was gaffe-prone, calling for a withdrawal from Afghanistan. He also ran the RNC into a massive debt after coming in with a considerable surplus.


Steele was interviewed by FrumForum where he laid down the victim line. Apparently he didn't think that his own incompetence was the reason that he was removed from office. During the interview Steele even said that he would "love" to go on Jon Stewart's the Daily Show.


But he plays the victim card very obtusely:


“I know exactly how Caesar felt,” Steele says, without a hint of irony. “It is what it is.” He claims that Priebus had been planning to defect for six, seven, eight months before announcing a bid for the chairmanship. Steele was blindsided. “I trust my friends. Well, I guess the adage is right. In Washington, you should get a dog… We put a lot of resources in Wisconsin over the last two years… that’s what you do for [the] team.”
Steele also takes credit for GOP gains last year, seemingly disregarding the resurgence of conservativism and the activism of the Tea Party.


FrumForum laid out the case against Steele in their own interview with him. They were able to list his gaffes and mistakes and had him respond:



“There was that incident that you weren’t directly involved in,” I start, but he cuts in. “I wasn’t involved in it at all,” Steele says, anticipating my question about what Jon Stewart later branded ‘the lesbian bondage fiasco’. “I know what you’re talking about.”
“There was a staffer [who] did something she wasn’t supposed to do, and she got fired for it… the test of leadership is how you handle it. We got the money back, we fired the individual involved,” Steele says.
And the comment about Afghanistan? About how the war in Afghanistan was “a war of Obama’s choosing”?
It was about time we kicked him out.



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