We’ll all spend the rest of our lives watching the former Bushies spinning wildly for their man’s legacy:
From Lisa DePaulo’s interview with Michael Steele, asking him to explain his pro-life views …
DePaulo: Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Steele: Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.
Here you can see Michael Steele trying to figure out whether he’s pro-choice or pro-life … with a tape recorder running.
Also, will Steele beat the Roberts’ record for shortest RNC Chairmanship ever? Matt Cooper discovered that the current record holder appears to be Sen. Pat Roberts’ (R-KS) dad, C. Wesley Roberts, who was chairman for four months in 1953 before a reporter discovered he’d collected a $10,000 commission on the sale of a hospital the state of Kansas owned. Good times. I wonder if Steele can top it.
As I think about this new Steele goof with his answer on the abortion question, I really wonder whether this might be the straw that broke the camel’s back, though that camel’s in pretty bad shape as it is. I think you can probably be pro-choice or pro-life and be head of the RNC. But given all the antics from Steele over the last few weeks, I’m not sure it’s sustainable to not be sure or to be so all over the place that you seem to switch sides during a single interview.
Ever since I read Michael Steele’s trainwreck interview with GQ that came out yesterday, I’ve been wondering, he thought this was a good moment to give a let it
all hang out interview?
Remember, this is the one where he appeared to forget in real time what his position on abortion was, took dangerously sane positions on homosexuality and told interviewer Lisa DePaulo that he was a fan of Frank Sinatra and the ‘Pack Rats’. Steele appears to say that he thinks abortion should be the choice of the woman, notwithstanding always saying before — and even in the same interview — that he’s pro-life.
So what was he thinking?
Well, I’ve talked to the folks at GQ. And they confirmed to me that the portion of the interview about abortion was conducted on February 24th. So a bit more than three weeks ago and just a few days before his ill-fated media critique of Rush Limbaugh on February 28th.
So basically, during his last two weeks of self-inflicted destruction this latest doozy has been sitting on Lisa DePaulo’s tape recorder or on some GQ editor’s desk waiting to, perhaps, inflict the final blow.
Special Bonus Snark: As Eric Kleefeld wrote about Steele’s discussion of rap music, Frank and the ‘pack rats’: “So Steele doesn’t just sound like a middle-aged man trying to talk to his kids and failing to sound cool. He’s also trying to talk to his parents and failing to sound cool.”
Michael Steele walking back the dog: No, no , NO! I am pro-life! That and the day’s other most entertaining political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
TPM Reader JC observes same thing I see:
I just wanted to pass along an observation. I think that with a lot of Michael Steele’s gaffes, he seems to say whatever he perceives to be the opinion of the person to whom he is speaking at the moment. Then later he has to backtrack because it doesn’t match the conservative orthodoxy. Take a look back at all the misstatements he has made and to whom he has made them. The man is a mirror. He just reflects back what he thinks you want him to say.
We’ve all met people like this (there’s some of this trait in all of us), but it’s a personality type that’s especially prevalent in political circles. Steele is a particularly hard-core example of the type, and while it’s fun to watch on a political level, on a personal level, I’ve started feeling sorry for the guy.
The FBI this morning raided the office of the chief technology officer for Washington, DC, who, until a few weeks ago, was Vivek Kundra, since appointed by President Obama to the newly created position of federal chief information officer. But so far it looks like Kundra is not the focus of the raid. Another employee has been arrested in the office as part of a federal bribery sting.