No Man of Steele

Three years ago, a GOP Senate candidate told reporters over lunch that being a Republican was like wearing a "scarlet letter."

The candidate said Republicans on the Hill had "lost our way," ripped President Bush's handling of Iraq and Katrina and said he did not want Bush to campaign for him.

That man, it turned out, was Michael Steele. He not only said these stunningly candid things, he thought he could get away with saying them to a group of journalists on background. Steele was outed as the unnamed pol after his remarks were reported in a Dana Milbank column. Oh, and he lost the Maryland Senate race.

Now the new Republican Party chairman, Steele is getting slapped around, not just by liberals but by many in his own party. Steele's mishandling of Rush Limbaugh -- first calling him "incendiary" and "ugly," then making a groveling apology -- has turned him into this week's piñata.

In fact, when Steele refused to appear on "Morning Joe" yesterday, Scarborough cracked: "Did Rush not give him permission?"

The former Fox News commentator was on Hannity last night, praising Limbaugh and saying they had talked and made up. "Nobody wants to report that part," Sean said. Maybe because we didn't know about it?

Steele has made some flubs, no question about it, such as declaring that government jobs aren't jobs. (Huh?) He looks a little odd trying to speak hip-hop. But some of this seems over the top. The guy has only been chairman for a month. He inherits a party that has gotten walloped in the last two elections and controls precisely nothing in Washington. Rush mocked him for trying to be a talking head, but what else is he supposed to do? How else does an out-of-power party get its message out?

Yes, a major part of Steele's mission is to rebuild the party. But that takes time, does it not? Judging him now seems as premature as griping that Obama hasn't rescued the economy yet.

The blind-quote brigades are after Steele, as we see in this piece by Byron York, now with the Washington Examiner:

"A number of Republican politicos around Washington, many of whom supported Steele's bid to become party chairman, are worried that key jobs at the RNC are unfilled and the party's mission is unfocused, while Steele makes appearance after appearance on television, with sometimes controversial results. The result, they say, is a party that is losing its already scant momentum at a critical time . . .

" 'I think it's been a disaster of a first month,' says one Republican who has served on Capitol Hill and the RNC. 'He needs to disappear for 60 days, go and staff the building, put his personal energy into making sure he has the people he wants, and go from there. That's what people are hoping he will do.'

" 'It's not good,' says another GOP politico. 'People feel that it's been very erratic at a time when we really need some sort of stabilizing force.'