When Michael Steele was elected to head the RNC, many, including this writer, hailed it as a step forward for race relations, not only in the GOP, but in the country as a whole.  Since then, things have gotten a little, uh, strange, however.  Steele, a politician who I had formerly known as a not particularly outspoken or controversial Lieutenant Governor from my home state of Maryland all of a sudden seemed emboldened by his new position and ready and willing to take the party of Lincoln in a very new direction: Hip Hop.

Steele entered the RNC and grabbed headlines by vowing to take the Republican party to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings,” with ideas that would be simply “off the hook”.  Most political observers wondered if this guy was for real or not and more importantly how long this type of thing was going to fly. While some members of the Republican party played along, like Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann in the cringeworthy clip below…

…not all in the party were particularly pleased with Steele’s version of Change.  Indeed the new RNC Chairman was showing himself to be not just the polar opposite of Barack Obama in substance but also in style, given how the President rarely displays any overt signs of hip hop culture in his public appearances (most likely for fear of the press latching on for two weeks as they did with the overplayed fist bump at last year’s DNC).

But soon Steele would find himself up against a Republican heavyweight whose sway over the party was not about to be undone by the latest diversity fad knee jerk that had swept into the national party headquarters after last fall’s crushing defeat.  After labeling none other than Rush Limbaugh as nothing more than an “entertainer” whose show was “incendiary” and “ugly” Steele was rebuked by the talk show host on his popular conservative radio program who countered, “It’s time, Mr. Steele, for you to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do instead of trying to be some talking head media star, which you’re having a tough time pulling off”.

Steele apologized two days later saying “My intent was not to go after Rush - I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh…I was maybe a little bit inarticulate… There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”  The apology humiliatingly followed comments White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made to CBS News just the day before naming Rush Limbaugh as the real head of the Republican party and noting this was evidenced by the fact that “…whenever a Republican criticizes him, they have to run back and apologize to him and say they were misunderstood.”

Soon calls began to surface for Steele’s ouster as head of the RNC, with one of the more notable ones coming from RNC member Dr. Ada Fisher who wrote Steele was “eroding confidence” in the GOP and that “I don’t want to hear anymore [sic] language trying to be cool about the bling in the stimulus package or appealing to D.L. Hughley and blacks in a way that isn’t going to win us any votes and makes us frankly appear to many blacks as quite foolish.”

Personally, I’m happy to have this squabble within the Republican party continue on ad infinitum.  But it is hard to argue with sentiment - even if it is coming from Rush Limbaugh - that Steele is making his party look somewhat less than professional at times.  I certainly don’t mind a little flourish here and there, but when a political figure’s public persona focuses too much on the world of entertainment and not enough on the business at hand skepticism is sure to follow from all quarters.

You can takepart in improving race relations in the United States in ways that work by checking out the NAACP.

LINKS:

Chicago Tribune: GOP leader Michael Steele’s apology to Rush Limbaugh came with a price

Baltimore Sun: Michael Steele gets off to rocky start as GOP chairman

CBS News: White House Scores on Republican bickering