Is it possible that Steele is a Democratic plant?

“Perhaps the best part of this story for Steele is that it broke on the Friday before a three-day holiday weekend.”

yeah, because i’m sure this will die down real soon. good lord, what kind of horse crap sentence is that? just change your last name to Halperin and be done with it.

(Apologies for the pure politics, but that’s pretty much the point of the post)

Steele obviously stepped in it and to make matters worse, he’s using the “war of xxx’s choosing” phrasing that has recently been used in regards to Iraq and Bush, so not only is it not a true statement, but it could draw focus to the anti-Iraq/anti-Bush undercurrent.

Though I have to admit that when I first heard the story, I initially flashed on a Tim Dickinson piece from a recent Rolling Stone, where he suggests that Karl Rove is lying in wait for Steele to fail miserably, so that he or someone like-minded could reseize the Republican Party.

Sure, Rove’s group may have raised only $200 last month, but they have previously raised more than a million, plus they claim pledges of more than $30m. So this latest Steele flub could be the final straw, “America Crossroads” has been wanting.

Let’s recap? Barton, now Steele making incredibly stupid remarks. Scalise from LA back pedaling when confronted and pressured by Chris Matthews to renounce Limbaugh’s words. Then we have John Bohner and I have no clue where he was coming from, or he has any idea of what’s really going on in the world today. Cheney-Haliburton connection, and the list goes on, do I sense a Republican meltdown in the making? My comment is one of observation on statements made by our leaders, I have issues with the Democrats too.

This really doesn’t surprise me. Steele has been driving on a different road than the Republican mainstream for quite some time and he does not properly represent contemporary Conservative thought.

If anyone ever doubted the proposition that Republicans are stupid and that anybody who votes for a Republican is stupid, this is the moment. Examine their recent behavior in both houses of Congress and read/listen the asinine comments of their conservative brethren/sisterhood in the media, combined with their hypocrisy, and you will come to the conclusion that they have no solutions to the problems affecting this country today. Whether it is climate change, balancing the budget and reducing the national debt, cleaning up the environment, this party is filled with empty rhetoric expressed in talking points supplied by their leaders in their think tanks and from their spiritual guru, Rush Limbaugh. Do you remember the stupid slogan: Drill, Baby, Drill?

Consider: the blow-out of the well in the Gulf of Mexico; the acidification of the oceans; global warming; the increasing concentration of arsenic in the Gulf of Mexico; the loss of jobs on the Gulf Coast; and yet they object to a moratorium of new exploratory drilling without knowing the cause of the present disaster. And they did not blame President Reagan for the Exxon Valdez Spill, but President Obama is responsible for the present ecological disaster. As further evidence of their stupidity, Karl Rove insists that any Republican can defeat Obama in 2012.

I say to Karl and the other political geniuses: Dream, Baby, Dream.

Michael had bitten himself here.

Steele is simply referring to Obama’s constant campaign rhetoric in ’08 about Afghanistan needing to be the centerpiece of the US’s military efforts. Obama made this point constantly in an attempt to differentiate himself from Bush, and even from other Democrats (such as Hilary Clinton). To that extent, this is a war of the President’s own choosing, and he will be judged on his success here more than if he hadn’t made such a big deal about Afghanistan when running for office.

Of course, many of us thought at the time that Obama highlighted Afghanistan simply because he wanted to be a vocal critic of the Iraq operation (which has been quite successful since the surge) without appearing to be a total pacifist. So Afghanistan was trotted out in campaign speech after campaign speech to make the candidate seem like a tough, savvy operator — but, honestly, this was more to score debating points and not well-conceived foreign policy initiative. The result is what you see today.

To try to use this as one more attempt to smear Michael Steele is simply part of the Democrat game plan of having at least one personal attack against a prominent a Republican in the news each day. This allows Maddow, Olbermann and company to report on something other than the economy, the job situation, the November elections, the oil spill, etc. If the left wants to report on what is happening in Afghanistan, they should look at the actual situation on the ground, not dissect a comment by Mr. Steele. Or isn’t that already pretty obvious to sensible, unbiased people?

>Steele is simply referring to Obama’s constant campaign rhetoric in ‘08>

I didn’t realize you could read Steele’s mind.
You realize you’d be the only person with that interpretation of his comments and that includes every Republican of note in America.

Look, Steele said something stupid. The end. Why do we have to twist ourselves into knots to justify or excuse or tap dance whenever your favorite politicians says 2+2=5? He screwed up. He’ll pay whatever price the party wants him to pay. The end.

there are two glaring examples of putting someone in a position they arent qualified to do just because a segment of the population are trying to prove they arent a racist. steele is one of them…

I’m pretty sure that Maddow, Olbermann and company report on ALL OF THOSE THINGS nightly… PS, Maddow will be in Afghanistan next week Felix, you might want to check it out… There is no way to sidestep the fact that Michael Steele made a mistake, and said something he shouldn’t have said. I’m not calling for him to step down or anything, but to give ANY politician a pass for saying something they shouldn’t, in 99.9% cases, shouldn’t be allowed, GOP or Dem. We’ve been in Afghanistan since 2001, it’s 2010. Obama wasn’t even in the Senate when we went to Afghanistan, and blaming him for the war is just the GOP’s way of projecting their mistakes on someone else. The fact is, we’re there, and we have the young people of America giving their lives over there. Instead of pointing fingers we should find a way to bring them home, in the safest, most productive way possible..

OH GOD I LOVE THIS GUY!! THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING!

and the cons who keep defending the GOP and treating thinks like this as trivial. I so love it!

Steele:

“The McChrystal incident, to me, was very comical. And I think it’s a reflection of the frustration that a lot of our military leaders have with this Administration and their prosecution of the war in Afghanistan,” said Steele. “Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”

“It was one of those, one of those areas of the total board of foreign policy ["in the Middle East"? -- Note: The audio is not quite clear in this section.] that we would be in the background, sort of shaping the changes that were necessary in Afghanistan as opposed to directly engaging troops,” Steele continued. “But it was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”

KEEP DEFENDING HIM CONS!

Geoff Hines said:
“Perhaps the best part of this story for Steele is that it broke on the Friday before a three-day holiday weekend.” yeah, because i’m sure this will die down real soon. good lord, what kind of horse crap sentence is that? just change your last name to Halperin and be done with it.

Dude or Dudette,

maybe you’re a lil clueless on the fact that big and/or controverisal storeis are always, intentionally broken on a Friday in Washington.. right or not, they have the mindset it will get buried in the news by Monday and won’t get much coverage.

Most knowing adults who pay attention to politics, are aware of this.

Now whom is the fool full of crap?

He’s toast..good riddance.

Um ya.. Total misrepresentation AGAIN by Mediaite

I think you fail to see the real news in this story and that you are blinded by the usual political squabbling. The real news is that the GOP Chairman says that we should perhaps not be in Afghanistan. If the mainstream of the Republican party understand that the US should not police the world, that would be good news for everybody!

I think felixw hit the nail on the head here. I also think that all this talk about what Michael Steele said is just part of
the heavy propaganda smoke screen we have been seeing since General McChrystal was removed that somehow
Afghanistan is now solely General Petraeus’s war . It was nice of President Obama to pass the baton now that
things are not going so well. That the President’s policy was headed for trouble was rather predictable even at
the time of the election even before they threw even more crap into the game with their PC rules of engagement.
While his delay of sending more troops was a terrible example of poor leadership abilities at least it showed that even President Obama was having second thoughts.

go Richard……keep the dems in office…..the repubics have no leader- except Rush Windbag

valkyrie101 said:
Is it possible that Steele is a Democratic plant?

Is it possible that Steele might not be as Neo-con’ish as Kristol hoped?

I lost any respect I would have otherwise had for him when he used monies from donations to the RNC to live the high life. In that regard, he behaved no differently than the Democrats. In addition, I do not believe Mr. Steele is interested in downsizing federal government, lowering taxes, stopping criminal aliens from invading this country, or restoring the US to a country governed in accordance with the parameters of the Constitution.

@ Thorkil Kowalski Værge: I’m inclined to agree with your comments–the US should NOT be the world’s police force–but what really chaps me is the way the US fights wars. Sun Tszu should be THE guiding document for waging warfare but it seems the politicians always are using war for their political gain. It seems the US has learned less than nothing about using warfare as a political football since our engagements in Korea and Vietnam.

My reference to Sun Tszu is that ANY war should be fought to WIN as expediently and economically as possible.

New Michael Steele Rap Video!!
Steele responds to his critics in new rap video, “I’m Michael Steele”!!

Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIbNYNZj7u4