Any ideas, especially this late in the 2010 game?

STATEMENT FROM RNC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL STEELE
ON AFGHANISTAN WAR

WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele released the following statement today:

“As we enter the Fourth of July weekend, I proudly remember standing with Maryland National Guardsmen on their way to the Middle East and later stood with the mothers of soldiers lost at war. There is no question that America must win the war on terror.

“During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama made clear his belief that we should not fight in Iraq, but instead concentrate on Afghanistan. Now, as President, he has indeed shifted his focus to this region. That means this is his strategy. And, for the sake of the security of the free world, our country must give our troops the support necessary to win this war.

“As we have learned throughout history, winning a war in Afghanistan is a difficult task. We must also remember that after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, it is also a necessary one. That is why I supported the decision to increase our troop force and, like the entire United States Senate, I support General Petraeus’ confirmation. The stakes are too high for us to accept anything but success in Afghanistan.” – RNC Chairman Michael Steele

I

…but unforced errors like this that result in campaign commercials for the democrats isn’t acceptable. We need an extremely high standard of media discipline, or all the hard work that could be realized in a massive election pickup in the fall will be…toast.

Aren’t there some GOP media consultants who can tell these guys what the hell to say on camera so they don’t fall into these traps?

Better now, and we’ll never have a better and more unspinnable (by him) reason.

(What happened to the previous version of the post?)

more than ever. I’ve been saying that since he announced his candidacy for RNC Chairman in November ’08 and even after Steele was elected I knew that Saul Anuzis was the only guy who would do the job right. I sincerely hope that he runs against Michael Steele the next opportunity that he gets.

what Steele said. Without even reading the article I thought he has to go.
By removing Steele now after such a major gaffe, the republicans may be able to avoid, or at least lessen, the racism charge.

But I thought the written RNC statement, if taken by itself, was OK. Not awesome. Did I really, really miss something?

I mean, my own statement, were I head of the RNC, would have been for Obama to resign, pretty much any good weekday, due to his gross mismanagement of the war, the other war, the oil spill, the economy, the porkulus, cap-n-tax, and for wrecking health care for everybody.

But “hey, you should be in it to win it, and give the military everything they need to make it possible” sounds ok to me.

But I thought the written RNC statement, if taken by itself, was OK. Not awesome. Did I really, really miss something?

I mean, my own statement, were I head of the RNC, would have been for Obama to resign, pretty much any good weekday, due to his gross mismanagement of the war, the other war, the oil spill, the economy, the porkulus, cap-n-tax, and for wrecking health care for everybody.

But “hey, you should be in it to win it, and give the military everything they need to make it possible” sounds ok to me.

The lavish lifestyle of michael steele and his RNC pals is an insult to donors. Furthermore, steele has shown that he is just a simple-minded ESTABLISHMENT HACK, who can’t even comprehend true conservative ideas or ideals. I second Bill Kristol’s suggestion that steele RESIGN before he does any more damage to our efforts to Take Back Our Country.

And I don’t blame them, when someone on their side says something annoyingly stupid we jump all over them as well.

They manage to do it more often, but this was inexcusable. If it were a one time thing you could overlook it. But Steele has had his foot permanently in his mouth for a long time now.

Steele states that Afghanistan is a war of “Obama’s choosing.” The statement could not be more idiotic. It reminds me of his equally brilliant statement that conservatives are just entertainers.

The Republican Party “non-leadership” is doing nothing but killing off all positive forward movement for both the GOP and for taking back our country. Steele is now a full blown detriment.

Michael Steele….please resign.

Scroll the trailer out to 2:06….

Also, I don’t think my previous message posted, so here’s the gist:

Steele’s gotta go. Time’s up. End of message. Over and out.

had put more work into developing a plan for the RNC position than any of the others. As was said above, he has not faded into the background, he writes conservative articles frequently, he was just on Beck’s radio show yesterday. I believe he holds some sort of consulting position with the RNC currently.

Please resign Mr. Steele, and allow the RNC to gain some dignity with someone who is not in competition with the Biden who only opens his mouth to switch feet.

Ken Blackwell can walk right into the position, roll up his sleeves, and take off running. He has never stopped working for the good of conservatism.

Add this voice to the ‘that is enough Steele!’ camp. Anybody worth their salt in that position has to know the story cannot shift focus to his own thoughtless comments. Yes, he has to go. Who to replace? YES! Blackwell! Ken is a fantastic and very smart politician, as well as a true conservative.

How many times must Steele display his foot-in-mouth disability to the public before he earns an early retirement?

Good grief. Thinking before speaking is the cardinal rule for official spokesmen of any organization, and doubly so in politics.

Will the feckless GOP do anything? I doubt it. Impotence seems to be the major problem there.

It is time to go, Michael.

Anyone think Haley Barbour would be interested in running the RNC again? He’d be great. The RGA is the best run Republican committee out there under his leadership.

It is more like a bureaucracy than anything else.
Get more members, cast a wider net, analyze market share projections and implement strategies which will maximize overall contributions.
Message? Ideals? Who cares?
We are talking about a sales and profit platform here… and we have to get our margins up because I am counting on that promotion for my own corner office with a view and my own staff…
So let’s knock off a bit early today and we’ll meet up at the Brass Pole Lounge for drinks and entertainment.

So…there’s the problem. The dedication is not to the Republican Party, to the Conservatives or anyone outside the RNC.
It is a complete self serving organization…and a way of life.

I say ignore Steele. He is just a distraction. Today, we have dismal job growth. Instead of harping on Obama, we’re talking about Steele.

In the Winter of 2011, the RNC will be electing a Chairman. No way Steele gets elected for another term. One year from now, he’ll be Hannity’s sidekick.

If we kick Steele out now, he will run to MSNBC and cry how racism the Tea Party and RNC is. We don’t need that for the midterms.

Steele has been directing and starring in this puerile, third-rate gaffe-fest for a while now. His ineptitude has been apparent from day one. Political Correctness, anyone?

I say [if it were up to me], I’d give his job to Scott Ott.

http://www.marklevinshow.com

Steele is an opportunist and incompetent. Steele will play the race card if he is ousted and Mathews and the rest of the MSM will run with it. “Racist GOP dumps first black chairman.”

Heard Blackwell on Glenn Beck show yesterday and he has the smarts and experienced to do the job.

To stand up there representing Republicans and disparaging the war effort is inexcusable!

Watching the video of the speech at RealClearPolitics, this wasn’t a “gaffe” or a “misspeak” – this was a long and painful exercise in delivering a speech that was so alien to its audience that I can’t believe the woman in the foreground didn’t stalk off in disgust. I would have.

It was a developed argument that Steele was trying to present, had clearly rehearsed and thought about, edited and amended while considering every word carefully before presenting it exactly as he did.

Anyone who has ever done (or assisted anyone in) public speaking beyond the junior varsity level (as one of Redstate’s contributors used to say) knows that this speech wasn’t a “gaffe” in the sense of mangling a phrase or dropping an accidental double entendre while speaking extemporaneously, or losing one’s train of thought, or all the other ways you can screw up a speech. The ideas here were clearly arranged in a logical progression and were delivered exactly as Steele thought they should be.

In other words, this wasn’t an accident, or a gaffe, or a “brain fart”. It was something that Steele or one of the people who writes for him had developed into the presenation he gave. There is no other plausible explanation for it except Possession.

So Michael Steele is either Possessed or he developed this speech and all its contents on purpose, while he was in full command of his faculties, to the audience he understood would be hearing it.

Either way, he shouldn’t be the leader of the Republican Party. William Kristol put it better than I did, and I don’t think there’s anything else to say, really.

Michael Steele needs to run for the U.S. Senate against Mikulski. His shortcomings as RNC chair have been administrative, and a bad habit of saying things that sound really bad and tar the party that he leads. As a senate candidate he’d be his own person and have a bit more latitude to speak his mind. Plus he’s probably the person with the best chance to put that seat in play – remember he came pretty close to beating Cardin in a very tough year for the GOP.

Plus it’d provide a way out of the chairmanship without looking like he’d been forced out.

100% that Steele needs to go.

When the RNC chairman becomes a distraction or a handicap he needs to go. 1st rule of RNC head is “do no harm”.

I don’t think Michael Steele should step down for what he said. After all, are we not allowed to voice our opinions and how we feel in our heart of hearts? I mean, I quite frankly have had enough of this knee jerk reaction by the GOP whenever someone tells the truth. It’s like, “Oh no don’t say that you might upset the president and the media” Michael Steele has balls. The GOP well, I don’t think I can say the same for the other so called leaders.

They did it to Joe Barton when he called a duck a duck, and now they want to hang Michael Steele out to dry.

And to Bill Kristol, no Mr. Kristol not everyone in the Republican Party subscribe to your war mongering doctrine. I’m anti-war and I’m in favor of leaving Afghanistan and the Middle East altogether, but I’m just as much a Republican as someone who wants to bomb every country on earth.

I say that as someone who’s sympathetic to arguments that OEF is unwinnable as currently constituted. As much as I dislike the guy, the war in Afghanistan was neither Obama’s doing or unjustifiable. Turning it into a partisan attack is cheap, foolish, and incredibly counterproductive. Lump me in with the guy who wants Saul Anuzis in charge.

I nominate Mike Hucka Hucka for RNC head.

Two birds one stone.

Why, two reasons?

1) A test for the future to see if he really can put forward a total conservative message, including fiscal matters, instead of just the social conservative message he relied on in the last cycle.
2) Effectively takes him out of the running for the Presidency. Ending the possibility of Red on Red fratricide in 2012.

of the Republicans, gift-wrapped, the one issue that will return the House to the Republicans in 2010 and make Obama a one term President in 2012. It’s called the Economy. It was terrible news, but it was the hard truth, the Ship of State is losing steam and losing way. Americans all ends of the political spectrum are silently making up their Obama needs to go, and no slick ad campaign or verbal gaffe on our side will change. To seal the deal, there needed to be a press conference on the steps of Congress with our side’s brightest economic minds and most telegenic faces, to validate(both employed and unemployed) Americans’ collective gut feeling that yes, the country really is starting to go to hell, and plead the only way out is sharp reversal of current failed policy. Followed by a drum beat ad campaign of our own, Jobs, Jobs, jobs. This is the lever issue that will pry them out in 2010 or 2012, as we did Carter in 1980. But instead, today……………….silence.

“But it is still a wonder why it is taking so long for the other Members–both Republican and the Democrats who claim to oppose Obamacare–to sign? Every time these Members vote, they have an opportunity to go and sign on the dotted line. So why the delay? ”

Erick, I have been asking this question for months now; where are the Republicans in challenging the Leftist Democrats agenda?

They are big on talk, but not on action. I know Michael Steele is a big problem for the GOP. He has done so much backtracking, obfuscating, and apologizing that no one really knows where he stands.

But, what of the rest? What is it that is causing so much anxiety over taking a stand? Could you, or someone else who has their ear to the ground, let us know what the reasons are. What are they afraid of?
——————————

So, I again ask the same question: What are they afraid of?

Fire Michael Steele, then find somebody who will go on the offensive. We have been on the defensive long enough!

He seems to apologize for Republicans instead of defending them and this isn’t the first time that he’s said something that made me go HUH?!?

He was picked because the media has sold the GOP leadership the big lie about their party having a ‘poor’ image with blacks and other minorities, and the gullible leadership buys it.

Of course, they could have picked a real conservative like Michael Keys or Ken Blackwell who are both outspoken and defend the party, but instead they went with the ‘moderate’ and ‘centrist’ Steele who has a bad case of foot-in-the-mouth malady.

The party deserves a much better spokesman.

And, you’ve got Lindsey Graham badmouthing the tea party movement in, of all places, the New York Times, this weekend. What he hopes to accomplish with that is anyone’s guess.

Did they hand stupid pills in Washington this week? Seriously…. Republicans need to just shut up and let the Democrat party continue self-destructing. Let’s get a little message discipline:

a) Stop the leak.

b) Irresponsible out-of-control spending

c) Horrible economy

d) Perceived as weak around the globe undermine our security.

e) ObamaCare

Why talk about anything else? You have to be brain-dead to go off message.

it’s no longer gaffes, it’s the design.

What I thought when I heard Steele’s speech:

I gave Michael Steele the benefit of the doubt when he ran for chairman. After that insanely idiotic comment, his slack has run out.

“Another prominent neoconservative has called for RNC Chairman Michael Steele to resign in the wake of his calling the Afghanistan war a largely un-winnable conflict of President Obama’s choosing.

In a statement provided to the Huffington Post Friday night, Liz Cheney, an influential figure within conservative foreign policy circles and an obviously vocal critic of the president, endorsed a similar call for Steele’s resignation from The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol.

From HP:
“RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s comments about the war in Afghanistan were deeply disappointing and wrong,” Cheney’s statement read. “The chairman of the Republican party must be unwavering in his support for American victory in the war on terror — a victory that cannot be accomplished if we do not prevail in Afghanistan. I endorse fully Bill Kristol’s letter to Chairman Steele. It is time for Chairman Steele to step down.”

Cheney and Kristol are, so far, the highest-profile figures to call for Steele’s resignation. No elected Republicans have weighed in on the matter, in part because Congress has largely checked out for the 4th of July recess.

Florida with Crist didn’t help either.

These people to me made it look like he doesn’t know what he’s doing- and the “white guys are scared of me” is for the birds… there’s nothing scary about this guy save the fact he can’t read people and seems a bit to occupied with racial theories for my taste- he seems like an ill-conceived, fashionable and supposedly pragmatic choice in the wake of Obama’s election- it’s really not working out

jmho- maybe Dan Riehl is right, it is too late in the cycle… but I sure wish we had somebody else in there, he doesn’t inspire any confidence in me… not one iota

Jeesh, Eric, get off the lame stream media’s coat tails.

Steele is correct – it is BO’s war of choice. BO claimed all along that Iraq was poor decision and that it detracted from Afghanistan.

BO said this without knowing the full picture of the situation over there.

BO thought the war should be fought in Afghanistan – stated so loudly – whined that troops were pulled from Afghanistan to fight in Iraq – sought to undermine Iraq – and has ultimately proven himself unknowledgeable, childish and unable to see the full picture for the long term benefit of all countries.

Stop jumping when the left says jump – it devalues you even more.

We gave him the benefit of the doubt but he is no leader.

In his “Harry Reid moment of doubt & shame” he has failed.

The war we are fighting in Afghanistian is an American war
against Islamic terror. Not a man caused disaster, the Obama
administration is a man caused disaster.

Our brave troops will need to hold on until we can kick
Obummer out of office. In the meantime General Petraeus needs to press the issue and get a “real surge” under way. General Petraeus
needs to keep up a full court press with the Taliban and Obama….

The last thing America needs is a nuclear equipped Taliban that will be funnelling nukes over to Iran.

General Petraeus needs to channel General Patton.

Happy Fourth of July!!!

Now is the perfect time for Michael Steele to announce that he is going to get a PhD from a conservative university. Now if only he could find a a conservative university that grants PhD’s.

War has been going on for nine years now with no end in sight. The country is nothing but tribal warlords and we are wasting our time, lives and fortune. Lets come home and start rebuilding the economy.

there is no end in sight for this war and Russia had to give up too.
This crap of losing our soldiers is just a scam. I’ve lost some respect for Mr. Erikson now. I’m sick of this war for profit crap. The truth is that if they did end the war our unemployment rate would SKYROCKET!

It’s no longer about doing what is right but doing what helps keep the party in power in power!

I’m sick of this crap it is time to clean house of both parties!! Period, end the establishment and Audit the FED!

I , like many others i suspect have given Steele a pass, till now. I am going with Palin as the new RNC chair this Jan, an idea suggested by Kevin Williamson over at NRO’s the Corner

An Idea for the RNC: Dump Steele, Hire Palin [Kevin D. Williamson]

Re: Steele and the RNC: Allow me to chime in with my usual observation on this subject: This is a job for Sarah Palin. Palin would be a much better RNC chairman than presidential candidate or freelance kingmaker. She’d raise tons of money and help recruit good candidates, i.e., she’d excel at doing the things Steele should have been doing instead of appointing himself Republican pundit-at-large.

A Chairman Palin would help set the right tone for the Republican party without having to get herself entangled in the minutiae of policy-development, which has not been her forte. Sure, she’d be polarizing, but so is Barack Obama, and these are polarized times. And it’s one thing to have a polarizing party chairman, another to have a polarizing candidate.

Anybody disagree?

I , like many others i suspect have given Steele a pass, till now. I am going with Palin as the new RNC chair this Jan, an idea suggested by Kevin Williamson over at NRO’s the Corner

An Idea for the RNC: Dump Steele, Hire Palin [Kevin D. Williamson]

Re: Steele and the RNC: Allow me to chime in with my usual observation on this subject: This is a job for Sarah Palin. Palin would be a much better RNC chairman than presidential candidate or freelance kingmaker. She’d raise tons of money and help recruit good candidates, i.e., she’d excel at doing the things Steele should have been doing instead of appointing himself Republican pundit-at-large.

A Chairman Palin would help set the right tone for the Republican party without having to get herself entangled in the minutiae of policy-development, which has not been her forte. Sure, she’d be polarizing, but so is Barack Obama, and these are polarized times. And it’s one thing to have a polarizing party chairman, another to have a polarizing candidate.

Anybody disagree?

I don’t get Erick’s hate of Steele.

The guy is speaking the truth. The GOP will never get anywhere if it promotes groupthink.

Certainly, Erick is guilty at best of misinterpretation, and at worst promoting propaganda to fulfill he own personal desires to the detriment of the conservative movement.

Don’t know what Erick’s deal is, but for some reason now conservatives can’t look at Afghanistan from a historical context or challenge the hypocrisy of the President’s position?

there have been numerous calls for Biden to resign because of his hundreds of gaffes…unfortunately, that will not happen. the Democrats hold their officials to a lower standard. the Republican Party, and its members, have a higher standard for ours. Steele’s comments were misguided and, unfortunately, unrecoverable. to show the opposition how we must run our party, and in larger part our nation, Steele must go. at any other private or publicly held company or corporation, he would have been fired.

so, Erik was right to comment on Steele to resign. it would be for the greater good of the party in the long run…