Shortly after Michael Steele was elected Chairman of the Republican National Committee, he declared that the GOP’s messaging and outreach efforts were going to be not merely “off the hook” but downright “beyond cutting edge.”
He then proceeded to try and take on Rush Limbaugh, got his head handed to him and quickly apologized, only to, shortly thereafter, make some heretical statements about gays and reproductive choice, for which he was again relentlessly attacked, at which point he tried to lay low until the fury passed.
Steele is apparently now confident that the outrage over his previous comments has subsided and that we have all forgotten exactly what transpired, because he is now back to giving interviews and claiming that it was all part of his master plan (and that he just might run for president, should the opportunity arise):
Steele: I am very introspective about things. I don’t do — I am a cause and effect kind of guy. So if I do something, there’s a reason for it. Even, it may look like a mistake, a gaffe. There is a rationale, there’s a logic behind it.
Lemon: Even with the current events in news–
Steele: Yeah.
Lemon: There’s a rationale behind Rush, all that stuff?
Steele: Yup. Yup.
Lemon: You want to share it with us?
Steele: Sure, I want to see what the landscape looks like. I want to see who yells the loudest, I wanted to know who says they’re with me but really isn’t.
Lemon: How does that help you?
Steele: It helps me understand my position on the chess board. It helps me understand, you know, where the enemy camp is and where those who are inside the tent are.
Lemon: It’s all strategic?
Steele: It’s all strategic.
I see. So his gaffes really weren’t gaffes at all – they were, instead, intentional, calculated attempts to get others to expose their biases and agenda? Brilliant!
Apparently, Steele operates under the motto that “whatever almost gets you fired makes you think you are a genius.”
But I wonder what the strategic rationale and logic is behind this statement. Is he merely bragging or is this some new, super-convoluted attempt to learn more about his “position on the chess board”? Didn’t he learn enough about about that during the last go-rounds, or has he decided to play the fool once again in order to get an even better understand the enemy camp?
It’s all so very confusing … but maybe that is just because I can never hope to understand the “beyond cutting edge” logic and reasoning at work here.
