Video: RNC Chairman Michael Steele doesn't do policy, but he sure tries hard

Remember the days when most people, even those who are politically curious, didn't know there even was an RNC Chair because this position did not come with any real power? I think that Michael Steele really makes life more interesting.

It also seems like a very rough day when when you are a Republican, and Joe Scarborough is challenging your thinking.

Think Progress examines Steele's four points, as follows:

1) Portability is a key feature of Obama’s health care plan. Anyone who enters into the new national health insurance exchange would be able to purchase insurance that stays with them, even if they switch jobs.

2) Steele says he’s for co-ops, by which he presumably means “association health plans.” AHPs wouldn’t help cover the uninsured, but would increase the costs of coverage and would allow selected small businesses to operate outside state regulations.

3) Steele’s tax proposal would mean that young and healthy workers would opt out of employer plans for cheaper coverage, meaning employers could no longer meet participation requirements to purchase insurance. The whole insurance system would slowly unravel, leaving even more people without care.

4) Steele’s proposal of tort reform addresses only 0.46 percent of total health care expenditures.

This TPM Video, or Yesterday in 100 Seconds, kind of shows Michael Steele not doing policy, and the bonus is, it's kind of gut tickling funny too. Well, maybe the gut tickling part is just me.

I will give Michael Steele one minor kudos.He is a likable face of the GOP. Funny, and from time to time, and very, very likable.

Video: A Message to The Blue Dogs

Video: Keyboard cat play off --GOP Chairman Michael Steele, a little fried chicken, with a side of potato salad

Play Michael Steele Off, Keyboard Cat - watch more funny videos

RNC Chairman Michael Steele, always thinkin': Blame it on 'The Gays'

I'm a thinkin' single-payer health care. If we had it, then we wouldn't be able hold the gay community responsible for wrecking health care, or taking something away from someone else.

It's the same old strategy. Divide the American people and conquer. I hope we're not falling for it again in 2010.

Think the little engine that could. I think I can, except say single-payer, single-payer, single-payer, single-payer.

Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday.

[snip]

"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

As Steele talked about ways the party could position itself, he also poked fun at his previous pledge to give the GOP a "hip-hop makeover."

"You don't have to wear your pants cut down here or the big bling," he said. "It's a metaphor for taking this party to places and to people that we've either forgotten about, ignored or feel don't want to engage with us." source: Examiner.com

What are they good at? It's BS 101. Are we going buy it once again? Hell no!

They're taking your guns away. They're coming to get you and Obama is sending them. That's the line they are using now. I should not say 'using'. Reviving is more like it.

We call it bull shit where I come from.

From Think Progress, it's RNC Chairman Michael Steele to The National Rifle Association:

It is ironic, to say the least, that at the same time Democrats in Congress are threatening to deny Americans their second amendment right to own a firearm and defend their families and homes, they are considering bringing terrorists like 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other Al Qaeda detainees to our communities once the President follows through on his campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay.

I will say that Steele said exactly what the NRA wanted to hear. Whether he believes what he says is an entirely different matter. It's still bull shit.

Yesterday in 100 Seconds

Thursday, Day 101, Chrysler Corporation, Mini Van, Time is Up, Necessary Steps Have Been Taken, New Lease On Life, Wow, Tough Language, The Vice-President, Confined Places, Run For Your Lives, OMG, He Would Say, Meant To Say, Republicans In Trouble, Regrouping, Surprised In 2010, Comeback, Weaker Than Anything, Michael Steele, Awkward, Wearing A Hat That Says GOP, That's How We Roll In The Northeast, Not Good, My Bad, Got It, Get It, Good

Multi-tasking

Republicans and their talking heads are now saying that the Democrats are using distraction by pointing out the Rush Limbaugh appears now to be the head of the Republican party.

Perhaps. I haven't found it to be distracting myself though. Just a little bit tiring.

I've listened to the Rush to Rush stuff, AND been trying to pay attention to as much of the rest of the news of the day as I can, including but not limited to the President's budget. I've also been paying attention the fact that many of the President's nominations are being held up. Not good and not very nice either.

Yay me! I'm multi-tasking!

They did give ole Mr. Limbaugh a pretty big platform and great deal of time at their Conservative party, and one thing that is entirely certain is that Mr. Limbaugh does not hold back.

The platform that Mr. Limbaugh was given at CPAC, would be akin to Dems making Al Franken the keynote speaker at one of their get-togethers. The Republicans and Rush would have a field day with that.

Oh yeah. I forgot something. Al Franken is very likely going to be the Senator from the Great State of Minnesota. Franken actually ran for something after having been a comedian and a radio talk show host for Air America Radio, representing talk-left. The court fight is still ongoing in MN, but it's still looking like Franken is going to win the contest.

Maybe Mr. Limbaugh should run for something. Now that would be a hoot!

source: Daily Kos

Michael Steele Defines His Job: ‘My Personal Opinion Doesn’t Matter In This’

It seems to me that the Mr. Steele is doing one of the things that Republicans hate the most, and used to attack Democrats in the past for, namely, talking out of both sides of the mouth.

I was with Rush before I was against him, or vice versa. I think I'm even confused.

God help him if members of the party realize it.

source: Think Progress

LAUER: I guess I’m asking you your personal opinion. Do you agree with Rush Limbaugh when he says that it’s common sense that as a conservative he wants the policies of Barack Obama to fail?

STEELE: Well, my personal opinion doesn’t matter in this. My job as the RNC chairman is to take into account all of the various views out there within our party and try to put together a strategy and a team that’s going to help us win elections. […]

LAUER: Mr. Steele, let me try it this way. There are many Republicans out there as well as Democrats who are unemployed right now. People are hurting across this country. Republicans like Democrats are losing their homes, they’re unable to send their kids to school. Do you think those Republicans want the policies of Barack Obama to fail right now?

You can't have too many 'defacto leaders' of the Republican party.... it is a party after all

Will the real defacto leader of the Republican party please stand up?

Interesting...

I thought it was Newt myself.

Must SEE TeeVee: RNC Chair talks 'long-term jobs' v 'work'

The Peon has some thoughts on this segment below if you are interested.

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Revisionist Historians Are They

Exhibit A) If you have not already heard the news, jobs created through government stimulus, i.e. spending, are not jobs, they are work. They are not permanent jobs the example which is jobs created in the private sector, which apparently are permanent.

Sounds like an argument that can also be made to the work that construction workers do. Not permanent, not jobs, just work and therefore not good and it doesn't matter who pays for the construction work, those jobs just don't last. I don't think construction workers would agree with this argument that Michael Steele is making.

Then Michael Steele's remarks about creating 'sustainable, long-term jobs' is laughable to people whose jobs have been shipped overseas. No job is permanent anymore, so to many folks a short-term job fueled by government spending sounds pretty good about now. No job ever was permanent. That fact has been being reinforced many times over in recent years.

Exhibit B) Then there's Mitch McConnell who said,'We know for sure that the big spending programs of The New Deal did not work'.

My parents lived through the depression years. They experienced the painful difficulties of life growing up with little much of anything, including food. They saw how FDR helped bring progress to the country.

Most people agree that further government spending which took place as a result of the United States entry into WWII, accelerated recovery. In both cases it was government spending that brought the economy back, so I don't understand the point of the argument at all, except that it's false.

Exhibit C) No bipartisanship per Lindsey Graham, et al. When the bill has been cut of many things that Democrats want, and many things that Republicans want are added to the bill, which has been the case, that sounds like bipartisanship to me.

If those Senators were not involved in the process, it certainly was not because they were somehow completely shut out of the process, because at least three Republican Senators did sit down the majority and change the bill to find some compromises.

New RNC Chairman Michael Steele on This Week

We're back to the same old tired B.S. from Republican National Committee Chairman Mr. Steele. Rewriting history or as we have come to know it, lying.

Six Million jobs, many of which were crap jobs that couldn't support a single person, let alone a family.

That's why in recent memory many (even some on the main stream media) have focused on the underemployed within the economy and not simply the raw unemployment statistics which are misleading.

Is America going to buy it again?

I hope not.