It turns out you can say something so stupid Republican power players will notice. They are a special breed of person, having trained themselves to let egregiously moronic comments from friends and allies slide like their brains are Teflon, but even they have their limits.
Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol have limits; in 99 out of 100 case, they’re the type of person who would zealously place blame on the Obama administration no matter what the reality. And yet, RNC Chair Michael Steele’s characterization of Afghanistan as an unwinnable war of Obama’s choosing was just the right amount of caught-on-tape, ahistorical and indefensible to inspire new calls for his resignation.
Michael Steele had been keeping a low (for him) profile since Bondagegate, (mostly) avoiding further controversy. In retrospect, the last few months were likely a statistical aberration, since no previous public fuck-up gave Steele a vigilant internal censor. Regardless, his silent semi-respectability is once again in tatters, the renewed calls for his resignation growing in number, with a vitriol usually reserved for Democrats.
To the consternation of GOP activists and lawmakers, Steele has time on his side. With the midterm elections in November, no one with an ounce of political savvy wants internecine warfare with an unavoidable racial element to dominate the headlines between now and then. It may be that they’re stuck with him for the last six months of his term, hostage to his unstoppable blabbermouth, praying to an uncaring god that he won’t offset electoral gains all that much.
