Does Michael Steele Pass Muster With Conservatives?

Human Events ^ | 2/4/2009 | Martha Zoller

[incredulous joe]

I didn’t hear him on Bennett last week, but maybe I’ll see if I can dredge up the stream to see what has got your knickers in such a twitch.

I’ve met Steele. I’ve heard Steele speak in dozens of forums ands I’ve seen how liberal trolls and Paulbots like to project their own version of his words.

[SumProVita]

“All you have to do is read and listen to the man. I am not supporting this guy, period!”

I HAVE read his words and listened to him MANY times. He IS conservative and is NOT a RINO. Maybe his actions as head of RNC will demonstrate that to you. Just keep a sharp and open mind on this.

[incredulous joe]

Take it for what it’s worth; comparing Steele to Olympia Snowe or Christine Todd Whitman reveals the ignorance of some of these naysayers and permanent minority party seekers.

[familyop]

"I would also point out that several items from your list of concerns are taken out of context"

Please show us how the following statement by Michael Steele could be taken out of context.

"Society should draw lines. What do you need an assault weapon for, if you're going hunting? That's overkill. But I don't think that means you go to a total ban for those who want to use gun for skeet shooting or hunting or things like that" --Michael Steele

Regardless of whatever else he could have said, that statement is very clear. It's all over the Second Amendment discussion boards. Even if he contradicts such a statement from now on, pro-Second-Amendment voters (probably most of the voters in the Republican Party) aren't going to believe him. He's a politician. And the slicker the politician, the less voters will trust him.

[familyop]

Has Steele really said anything in favor of reparations? I would be interested in finding a sourced quote for that. Reparations for damages 150 years ago and before is a really nutty political position.

[SumProVita]

I believe that someone else on the thread already addressed this.

[trisham]

Pro-life, but we have to live with 33 years of reality

Senators cast votes on matters of substance and national import: up or down, yes or no. It is in this area that Steele is less comfortable - and at his most vulnerable as a candidate. It is not always apparent if he can clearly enunciate where he stands - or maybe he just doesn't want to. Even on some of the issues that are closest to his heart, he defaults to soft, imprecise language. Steele says that he is proudly "pro-life" but seemed to equivocate when I asked if he favors greater restrictions on abortion or its outright ban. "The dance we do is, we put too much pressure and weight on one decision," he said, referring to Roe v. Wade. "We have to re-evaluate that." He claimed that he was not advocating overturning the decision, only asking if we "have to live with the reality of a decision that was made 33 years ago."

Source: By Michael Sokolove, New York Times Mar 26, 2006

[familyop]

"The folks who are posting the talking points need to grow up and understand the way things work in a wacked out blue state like Maryland."

I disagree with your description of quotes of Steele's own words as "talking points." Contrary to your typical insult (telling us "to grow up"), we are adults. And we won't be moved so far to the left as to agree with political speech that is "the way things work in a wacked out blue state like Maryland."

As many of us have seen over the past two years (and some of us, longer), such propaganda and takeover campaigns are nothing other than left/liberal campaigns to infiltrate and destroy the Republican Party to render US government into a one-party system. Radical socialists call the tactic, "gradualism."

[sitetest]

Dear Darkwolf377,

I first met Mr. Steele back in 1994 or 1995, when he first became Chairman of the Republican Party of Prince George's County. I was instantly impressed, and have always thought he was a great guy.

But his October 2006 performance on Meet the Press was disappointing and disheartening. His comments regarding Roe v. Wade were somewhat internally contradictory (Roe should stand, but Roe should be decided by the states - that's just gibberish). But in the end, he affirmed that Roe should stand.

That's not a pro-life position.

Perhaps he didn't mean it, perhaps he misspoke, perhaps he was trimming, fudging, trying to do the dance (none too successfully), but in the end, on that day he DID NOT defend the rights of the unborn with his words, but rather acted like a sniveling, compromising, fearful tool. It was very, very disappointing.

All that being said, I'd still be willing to give Mr. Steele a pass if he were to clarify that ROE MUST GO (whether by court decision, constitutional amendment, federal legislation removing jurisdiction from the courts, or what-have-you).

But without that, he appears to me to be unfit to lead the party. His words and actions that October day mark him out to be someone willing to contradict his own principles for political gain, as someone who is more of a follower than a leader. Leaders are forthright, and say what they believe, even if most folks disagree with them.

Everyone makes mistakes, but at least for the really public ones (and Meet the Press is a pretty public place to make a mistake) you gotta own up to them and correct them before you can successfully move on.

sitetest

[Retired COB]

You really don't like Steele, do you? You're chasing him all over the site.

He's not the only one that thinks that Steele is a RINO. Ken Blackwell would have been a much better choice.

[trisham]

What does “liking” have to do with it? One could say the same about Steele’s supporters as well, that they are blinded to his faults because they “like” him.

[sitetest]

Dear trisham,

“What does ‘liking’ have to do with it?”

Well, I've met the guy, and I like him.

But I can't support him as long as his pro-Roe remarks go uncorrected. Assuming that he didn't mean them in the first place.

I can't belong to a pro-abortion party.

sitetest

[trisham]

Dear sitetest,

I don’t like or dislike him. I do think that he is not the conservative that many think that he is.

trisham

[roses of sharon]

http://www.barnabasroad.com/station=wogo-am2.html

Steele coming up on Laura in a few.

[trisham]

Thanks for the link.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Ken Blackwell would have been a much better choice.

Ken Blackwell agrees with you. He also decided that Michael Steele was the next best.

[P-Marlowe]

Ditto. I am anti-abortion but acknowledge that it is a state or local issue.

The point at which we recognize the individual rights of the unborn is a constitutional issue. The Constitution guarantees the right to life. This should not be an issue simply left to the states.

Steele said that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned. He has not publicly retracted that statement. He has no business being Chairman of the GOP.

[Darkwolf377]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

I read the MTP thing over and over, and I gotta say, it isn’t setting off my warning alarm. I have no problem with someone saying what he did, which is that RvW is a dead issue. It’s never going to be dumped. It’s “settled law” and is such an emotional trigger no one is going to touch it.

What he DID say is that the issue should be sent back to the states, which is precisely what would happen if RvW went down.

Russert was doing what all MSM folks do—trying to back a Republican into saying something rather foolish, seeing how RvW is never going anywhere and is only a diversionary tactic.

Republicans HAVE to frame this debate—we can’t let the left do it anymore.

If you ask people “What about RvW?” you will see an unalterable block saying leave it alone.

But if you ask “Should states get to decide?” I am betting you would get a huge shift to our side.

I want abortions to end. I am not for jumping off a bridge and saying “Well, at least I stood by dumping RvW!” when I could be marching forward in severely cutting down on the abortions in this country—which is the whole point of being against elective abortions.

So Steele is a politician? Yes—this isn’t a surprise.

We have to consider the time and media landscape in which we actually live if we’re going to affect change, and not pretend we can make our own rules about how we appear in a medium controlled by leftists.

[MHGinTN]

You cannot ban ALL abortion because science has yet to figure a way to remove alive and implant to another body or to the uterus an ectopic pregnancy.

Yeah, that sounds like an esoteric line of reasoning, but it immediately brings to the fore the reality that aborting a pregnancy ought ONLY be to save a woman's like since any abortion of a living unborn is killing at least one of the two alive individuals involved int he medical procedure.

[Darkwolf377]

You cannot ban ALL abortion because science has yet to figure a way to remove alive and implant to another body or to the uterus an ectopic pregnancy. Yeah, that sounds like an esoteric line of reasoning, but it immediately brings to the fore the reality that aborting a pregnancy ought ONLY be to save a woman's like since any abortion of a living unborn is killing at least one of the two alive individuals involved int he medical procedure.

Uh, that's why I wrote "elective abortion".

We all know what we're discussing here, do we have to be so picayune?