We hear a lot these days about the blunders and failings of Chairman Michael Steele.   Many think that Chairman Steele has been making too many public mistakes and is simply not up to the job. In my humble opinion, they are totally and absolutely wrong.  Dead wrong.  Steele knows exactly what he’s doing.    You see, Steele is obviously using a classic military tactic.  A probing action to draw out the enemy (or in this case the opposition “us” – Movement Conservatives) for the purpose of judging their strengths/weaknesses.   Steele is gutsy and bold.  He aggressively thrusts forward with his “Extreme Moderate” agenda (LINK).  And then he retreats.  Classic!   Just as with the Limbaugh  encounter, forward – critical/name-calling one day and then the next day retreating /apologizing.  Very well executed. This tactic requires a rapid retreat or the individual(s) performing the probe will most like become a casualty.  Steele has come fairly close to that, yet he survives. 

But you see an “extreme moderate” like Steele,  and many others within the GOP Hierarchy  believe radically in their particular brand of “moderation”.  These haughty moderates are so enamored with themselves for being able to move back and forth across the aisle compromising, communicating and working well with those on the far left, the center and, occasionally, even the right.   Like a honey bee buzzing from flower to flower.  Yes, it is almost sexual.  That’s how strong it is.  Self adoration.  Infatuated and totally in love with self.   You can see it when they operate.  Restraint and genteel rhetoric.  Fake humility.  Dulcet tones.  No real passion because, in their effort to be all things to all people they are, in fact – no where!   Certainly they’ll occasionally self-destruct when they get caught in their own trap of trying to play both sides toward the center. 

So, what we have here is  Steele “and others” making a deliberate and determined effort to steer the entire political process of the GOP (and the Nation) back toward the left.   Driving toward the center and most likely beyond!  And the probing actions?  Well, these Extreme Moderates are trying to determine what they can get away with.   Steele is bravely taking “the point”  but do not think he is alone in this endeavor.  You can be certain that he has the blessings of many within the GOP Hierarchy.  I totally expect John McCain to jump to his defense and will be surprised if he doesn’t.  This is, I believe, a planned, organized and choreographed offensive.   It’s a long term plan designed to eventually wear down the opposition.   He and his skirmish line are advancing under fire. 

And what about this “skirmish line”?  Who are some of the combatants? The participants?  Well this is actually a new movement, in its infancy.   I’m calling it the Movement of Extreme Moderates (MEM).  An oxymoron of sorts, I suppose.   I mean, there have always been moderates but they’ve not been so combative.    David Frum is, in my view, an MEM leader and he’s already proclaiming victory.  Saying they are the “New Majority” .  In his view, his brand of conservatism (which is not conservatism) is the only formula that can win.  

And we have “new recruit”.  Valley girl,  Meghan McCain.   Already going on the offensive against anyone that she considers too extreme.  Making Daddy proud.  Riding her high horse, she even slammed her fellow MEM member Steele! : ( link2 ).  That’s normal.  Remember all MEM members revere their own particular brand of moderation above all.  They’re in deep, rapturous love with their own opinions.  A weakness that can be exploited by Movement Conservatives, by the way.

So we have, in my view, this MEM forming up without its members even being aware of the fact, apparently.  A weak and fragmented cabal fomenting a mini-revolution within the GOP.  Vying for control – and  on the attack.  Their one big advantage?  The confused, clueless 168 members of  the RNC made a boneheaded move and placed an MEM member in its “Chair” at the head of the table.  Or maybe many of these “168” are, in fact, Extreme Moderates, too? 

Now what will Movement Conservatives do?  Are they so demoralized and defeated that they’ll  sit on their hands and watch 30 years of hard work  evaporate?  Will they stand idly by while this pip-squeak, up-start of a movement pushes their way in taking more control of the Republican Party than it already has?   Diluting the Republican message down into some lukewarm pablum that right-thinking Middle America will, once again, spew out of their mouth come next election day? 

Michael Steele and his hip-hop strategy ;  it’s all about pandering.   The same destructive pandering tactics of  Bush43 and Karl Rove.  This is what has placed the Conservative Movement in the mess it is now in.  And Steele and his ilk want to move more toward that groveling, pandering, doormat of a direction??    By pandering to specific groups, the “panderer” only draws the ire and disrespect from those in other groups not being pandered to. 

Question is, do we Conservatives have the will to stop this insanity and get this Nation moving rightward again?  The direction that the majority of Americans want our nation traveling.   Do we have the stomach to aggressively go after people in our own political party that have now, for what ever reason, strayed away from the Conservative Movement and are drifting (or in some cases running) leftward? 

About 173 years + 10 days ago in an abandoned mission, fortified by Texas freedom fighters, in what is now San Antonio, Texas,  Col. William B. Travis read a letter aloud to his men.  It was a letter demanding surrender from Mexican Gen. Santa Anna.  Travis unsheathed his sword and drew a “line in the sand”.   Well, you know the rest of the story, I’m sure.  If you don’t, shame on you.

Darvin Dowdy