Michael Steele Sits Quietly & Nods While Interviewer Compares GOP to Nazis

From The Corner:

Rich referred to this earlier. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but the video is much worse than described by Newsbusters' Michael Balan. He quotes a lot of what was said by the host, D.L. Hughley, about Republicans being like Nazis, but Balan goes on to report, incorrectly, that "Steele did not verbally react to Hughley’s Nazi characterization." Steele not only did react but did so in a way that accepted Hughley's slanderous claim — Steele's infuriating come-back was to suggest that this description of Republicans as racists was valid, but now he, Michael Steele, was here to set things right.

Watch the video (linked in Balan's report) and judge for yourself. I did and made my own transcript, which follows:

Hughley: I’m tellin’ you, if it were the sign alone — In other words, the tenets of the Republican Party are amazing, and they seem warm and welcome. But when I watch it be applied — like you didn’t have to go much further than the Republican National Convention.

Steele: Agreed.

Hughley: It literally looked like Nazi Germany. It really did.

Steele: [ACM: I think he appears to be nodding his head slightly. Could mean he agrees — judging from the entire context, that’s certainly a fair interpretation — or it could mean he was simply following what Hughley was saying but not necessarily agreeing. Again, judge for yourself, but Steele is very clearly NOT objecting.]

Hughley: And I make — say that point, it just does not seem, like not only are we …

Steele: Well —

Hughley: not welcome, not only we’re not welcome, um, they don’t even care what we think.

Steele: Well, I’m here, I’m here now —

Hughley: And that — I mean that, that, that, seems to be the way I —

Steele: You — you’re right

Chuck D: I covered the — I covered the Republican Convention in 1996 … [statement continues]

I don't care about the Limbaugh thing. That's much ado about nothing and ultimately it merely contributes to the point that I'm about to make.

Michael Steele is hopelessly out of his league.

He reminds me of a buddy that's always agreeing with you, even if he doesn't deep down inside, simply because he cares too much about what you might think of him to ever speak up and say that he disagrees with you. After all, if he thought differently, you might think less of him, and his ego couldn't stand for you to not like him, so he just agrees with whatever people are saying to him.

Listen to Michael Steele sometime when he's on talk radio. You won't find him disagreeing with anybody, regardless of how outlandish the callers might become. He just goes with the flow.

And right now, the flow from 2006 and 2008 has washed the Republican Party out to sea, and somebody needs to go against the flow to get back on land again.

Michael Steele is clearly not that person. If he is, he needs to show it real soon. I'm not ready to say he has to go, but he's got to learn fast.

And this same point about Steele being out of his league goes to the Rush Limbaugh incident of late.

He's so out of his league that he doesn't know that the Democrats have placed him in a strategic Catch-22, and he's not clever or verbally adept enough (or willing to disagree with those interviewing him enough) to say otherwise.

The issue of Rush and the GOP is one that can be handled easily, even in unexpectedly unfriendly formats; just watch Bobby Jindal talk to Larry King about the subject the other night after Larry King suddenly turned into an unexpectedly hostile questioner of Jindal about it.

Heck, even bloggers can make the point easily enough:

The White House, the DNC, and Americans United for Change are all apparently about to double down on their "Republicans equal Limbaugh" strategy. My thoughts on this are summed up by a comment on Ann Althouse's blog highlight by Instapundit: "Does anyone really think Team Obama's focus on Limbaugh reflects their success so far in office."

This should be the only talking point when conservative surrogates are brought on TV to talk about this compleltely fake controversy: The only reason the Obama White House is attacking Rush Limbaugh is because Obama already has been a complete failure in office. Since his election in November the market has lost 25% of its value and every single one of his policy announcements has only been followed by hundreds of thousands of more lost jobs.

Obama, the Democrats, and the left desperately want to change the subject from Obama's performance. That is why they are investing time, resources, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in demonizing Rush. How does any of this help the American people?

Somebody needs to get Michael Steele a chalkboard and make him write those things on it a few hundred times until he has them down pat for the next time he has to face an interviewer who asks him about Limbaugh.

And, ultimately, Michael Steele's purpose is not to be a face for the party, or a spokesperson, or a good interview. It's to raise boatloads of cash to help finance a powerful election machine in 2010. If he can't do that, then it doesn't matter what psychosis it is that causes him to agree with everyone around him.

From the start, I've said that Michael Steele had a big challenge ahead of him. Almost half of the party's representatives didn't vote for him, and the party's base is already fractured. Engaging an important and iconic figure to much of that base is not the way to bring the party together and get moving in one direction.

Michael Steele doesn't seem to get that at all. He needs to get it, and fast. The clock is ticking, and there's little margin for error.