GOP Chair Steele Again Under Fire

(AP)

Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele is once again in the news after suggesting in an interview with GQ that he believes abortion should be "an individual choice."

Steele added that pro-abortion rights advocates "absolutely" have a place in the "big-tent" GOP. He also told the magazine that Roe v. Wade was "a wrongly decided matter" and that states should set their own abortion policies.

After the interview came out, Steele emailed a statement insisting that he is "pro-life, always have been, always will be."

He suggested that in the interview he was trying "to present why I am pro life while recognizing that my mother had a 'choice' before deciding to put me up for adoption."

"…the Republican Party is and will continue to be the party of life," he added. "I support our platform and its call for a Human Life Amendment."

The statement did not satisfy Steele's conservative critics.

"For Chairman Steele to even infer that taking a life is totally left up to the individual is not only a reversal of Republican policy and principle, but it's a violation of the most basic of human rights–the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said of the comments. "His statement today helps, but doesn't explain why he would ever say what he did in the first place."

"Michael Steele has just unmistakably proclaimed himself to be pro-choice," anti-abortion activist Jill Stanek said in an email to Politico. "You thought he was 'embattled' last week over his Limbaugh comment? Ha. He has now stepped both feet into it." Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life Action, meanwhile, characterized the remarks as "language straight out of Planned Parenthood's messaging playbook."

Even by the standards of someone who has had a rocky tenure in his new job, Steele has had a rough week: In addition to taking heat for his comments on abortion, he also faced rumors that Katon Dawson, who finished second to Steele in RNC chair voting, was agitating for a no-confidence vote against him at the end of the month.

Dawson, who is meeting with Steele privately today, denied the claim, but as the Washington Post wrote, "the fact that [the rumor] started at all is evidence of the unhappiness directed at Steele in some quarters of the party."

Steele was the most moderate candidate in a crowded field for the GOP chairmanship, and his abortion comments will fuel fears among conservative Republicans that their chair is too far to the left on a number of issues, abortion chief among them.

Unlike past party chairs, Steele has made himself a very public face for the Republican Party, and his forays into the public realm have not always been successful: Steele was mocked for saying the GOP needs a "hip-hop makeover" and criticized both for calling far-right talk show host Rush Limbaugh's rhetoric "incendiary" and for apologizing later for having done so.

His comments and missteps have led to news stories in which anonymous powerful Republicans have complained that Steele is not capable of handling his job leading the RNC.

In the GQ interview, Steele also said that homosexuality is not a choice – hardly a universal position among members of his party.

"I think that there's a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that, uh, you just can't simply say, oh, like, 'Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being gay,'" he said. "It's like saying, 'Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being black.'"

Hotsheet would encourage you to check out the entire GQ interview, which opens with Steele uttering the words "Aw, sh—" after the interviewer said she expected him to be playing hip-hop in his office.

[kansas1946]

Limbaugh has never had an intellectual moment in his entire life.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 4:21 AM : Mar 13, 2009
************************************************

I think he is a wonderful poster boy (leader) for the Republican party. Bloated, lying, hypocritical, arrogant, pompous, white, male, gas-bag. You can't get any closer than that to the current Republican party!

[kansas1946]

Oh, yawn. I guess the Republicans were hoping to control their "Magin Negro" a little better than they are. The Republican party only cares about one thing. Abortion. Period. Well, that and bashing g a y people. They have no platform, no ideas, no compassion, no heart, no nuttin' except and overblown sense of riteousness and narrow-minded judgementalism. They kind of remind me of the Taliban. Same mind-set.

[No_More_Neocons]

Once again we see the ignorance of NEOCONs. Steele is a moderate Republican and I for one am glad to see the such stand up and try to take the GOP back from the extreme right wing fanatics that control it today. Until we rid ourselves of all the NEOCONs the Republican party will never again sit in a position of power. America has grown sick of your dribble and failed policies.

[pensacola8-2009]

The only war that the GOP ever won was their war on education. The result was six years of under-educated voters finally learning what they did NOT want for their future., hence the GOP is out of power.

[abbe91]

" It has always seemed odd to me that conservatives/Republicans profess to want a small government and yet they believe the government should have the power to interfere in a woman's very private choice as to whether to carry a pregnancy to term. It just seems contradictory to me. Either the government has limited powers or it doesn't.
Posted by realnews12 at 7:02 PM : Mar 12, 2009 "


And you could have mentioned the Schiavo story as well

[formrusmcsgt]

Ralph Limbaugh is the intellectual voice of the remaining Republicons in Congress!

Posted by neoconism at 7:01 PM : Mar 12, 2009

Limbaugh has never had an intellectual moment in his entire life.

[formrusmcsgt]

The Repubs know their agenda was rejeced soundly by the American people last fall.

They were shelacked. Period.

I hope they continue with their exclusionary, self-righteous ideology.

Watching them fight like cats in a bag is quite entertaining and brings their extremism to the surface for all to see.

[DefendLiberty]

The GOP has become the last bastion of extremist far right fundamentalist/neocon orthodoxy. There is no infinitesimal compromise or accommodation to reality that these few zealots will tolerate. The Christian Taliban has come to America, and it is the GOP.

[realnews12]

It has always seemed odd to me that conservatives/Republicans profess to want a small government and yet they believe the government should have the power to interfere in a woman's very private choice as to whether to carry a pregnancy to term. It just seems contradictory to me. Either the government has limited powers or it doesn't.

[Huizilopochtli]

Wait wait, thats not what i said after i said it....
GOP......
L (oosers)
is the new Letter.