Steele to Rush: I’m sorry; Update: Beck, Coulter knock Steele; Update: DNC chair hits Steele

posted at 6:36 pm on March 2, 2009 by Allahpundit

Rahm Emanuel yesterday:

Mr. Limbaugh has “called for President Obama to fail. That’s his view,” Mr. Emanuel said. “And whenever a Republican criticizes him, they have to run back and apologize to him and say they were misunderstood.”

Michael Steele today:

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”…

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said…

“He brings a very important message to the American people to wake up and pay attention to what the administration is doing,” Steele said. “Number two, there are those out there who want to look at what he’s saying as incendiary and divisive and ugly. That’s what I was trying to say. It didn’t come out that way. … He does what he does best, which is provoke: He provokes thought, he provokes the left. And they’re clearly the ones who are most excited about him.”

Asked if he planned to apologize, Steele said: “I wasn’t trying to offend anybody. So, yeah, if he’s offended, I’d say: Look, I’m not in the business of hurting people’s feelings here. … My job is to try to bring us all together.”

Rush’s fans will hold Steele in contempt for criticizing him in the first place and Rush’s critics will hold him in contempt for apologizing now. Well played, sir. Exit question: Whose contrition was more groveling, Steele’s or Phil Gingrey’s?

Update: Coulter repeats the boss’s point from earlier today about how it’s perfectly okay to criticize Rush. Since when? Did CPAC pass a resolution?

Update: Rod Dreher skewers Steele: “Please Rush, don’t hurt me!”

Update: Tim Kaine seizes the moment:

“I was briefly encouraged by the courageous comments made my counterpart in the Republican Party over the weekend challenging Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party and referring to his show as ‘incendiary’ and ‘ugly.’ However, Chairman Steele’s reversal this evening and his apology to Limbaugh proves the unfortunate point that Limbaugh is the leading force behind the Republican Party, its politics and its obstruction of President Obama’s agenda in Washington.”

Tags: ,

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Trackbacks/Pings

Trackback URL

Comments

Comment pages: 1 … 6 7 8

Someone very bright once said to meh that Perception is Reality.
If Rush becomes teh Face of conservatism, how does that help republicans engage with their Lost Demographics?

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 12:32 PM

If Rush becomes teh Face of conservatism

What do you mean If?

OmahaConservative on March 3, 2009 at 12:36 PM

Rush is pure skull and crossbones for moderates and independents.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 11:53 AM

This is liberal theology hard at work here. See, far left loons like Maddow and Olberdouche (cry a little, MadisonLiberal), have blurred the line so the retarded moderates and independents that sit the fence and can’t make up their damn minds don’t know the difference.

If these so-called “independents” and “moderates” would educate themselves a little and pay a little more attention to the American Political atmosphere, they’d learn something from Rush. Instead they believe everything the left tells them, and pay attention only to Rush’s enraged tone, and not to the message that Rush puts out.

Again, independents are morons that can’t make up their mind.

jeanie…..O is not the problem.
It isn’t that the electorate has studied Obama’s policies and endorsed them….it is that moderates and independents are running from hardcore conservative avatars like Palin, Coulter and Rush like….well… like scalded cats.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 12:16 PM

Again, O is the problem. Just because a few retards got out and voted after not paying attention during the entire election doesn’t excuse the behavior of an evil tyrant like Obama. To excuse his behavior, or dismiss his bass-ackwards policy and pin the blame solely on fence-sitting morons is wrong.

By the way, I am a hardcore conservative. No abortion under any circumstance, completely free market principled economic theories, Fully privatized banking/lending/mortgage brokering, states rights, dissolution of useless Federal programs like DHHS, FCC, FDA, DEA, MEdicare, Medicaid, welfare, and replacement of responsibility of these agencies on the state government, death penalty for violent criminals, replacement of full gun rights to lawful individuals, low tax/abolishment of income tax/fair tax -that’s a hardcore conservative. It’s doubtful that Rush, Coulter, and Palin embrace all of these principals in their purest form.

leetpriest on March 3, 2009 at 12:40 PM

…it is that moderates and independents are running from hardcore conservative avatars like Palin, Coulter and Rush like….well… like scalded cats.

Yeah…let’s see which way those “moderates and independents” are running after they’ve lived through the next 20 months of hardcore Leftists like Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

My prediction?

“SCREEEEEEEEECHHHH!!!”

rvastar on March 3, 2009 at 12:40 PM

This is GOP inside baseball. What’s important is how moderates and independents viewed McCain. And he did move very much to the right during the election. He presented the orthodox Conservative view on all of the major issues.

Atlanta Voter on March 3, 2009 at 12:25 PM

Blah blah blah…moderates and independents…blah blah blah….they’re like unicorns, they keep crapping on the American carpet.
If McCain moved right, it was to the center, because he didn’t exude ANY conservative values…..he was dem lite.

HornetSting on March 3, 2009 at 12:43 PM

He presented the orthodox Conservative view on all of the major issues.

Atlanta Voter on March 3, 2009 at 12:25 PM

Immigration? Super far left.
All social issues except abortion? Super far left.
War? Neo-con. This isn’t conservative. Conservatives don’t wage war when they feel like it. True conservatives only approve of the use of war when absolutely necessary to protect freedoms and the country. Saddam Hussein being alive is a threat to America. Militant Islam is a threat to anyone that isn’t a militant Muslim.

So for McCain to say that 50 or 100 years in Iraq is necessary is obscene. Without a premature armistice or a premature cease-fire in place, a war can be won in about 5 years.

leetpriest on March 3, 2009 at 12:47 PM

Those who still care, pay attention

And, in a difficult moment, at a party meeting in Moscow, he said: “Comrades, don’t panic, when things go very hard for us, we will give a rope to the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie will hang itself.”

Then, Karl Radek, whom you may have heard of, who was a very resourceful wit, said: “Vladimir Ilyich, but where are we going to get enough rope to hang the whole bourgeoisie?”

Lenin effortlessly replied, “They’ll supply us with it.”

Through the decades of the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1940s, the 1950s, the whole Soviet press wrote: Western capitalism, your end is near.

But it was as if the capitalists had not heard, could not understand, could not believe this.

Nikita Khrushchev came here and said, “We will bury you!”

I would like to call upon America to be more careful with its trust and prevent those wise persons who are attempting to establish even finer degrees of justice and even finer legal shades of equality – some because of their distorted outlook, others because of short-sightedness and still others out of selfinterest – from falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road. Because they are trying to weaken you; they are trying to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat – one which has never been seen before in the history of the world.

Not only in the history of your country, but in the history of the world. And I call upon you: ordinary working men of America – as represented here by your trade union movement – do not let yourselves become weak. Do not let yourselves be taken in the wrong direction. Let us try to slow down the process of concessions and help the process of liberation!

Khrushchev was right – with enough rope we will hang ourselves. The gnats in here just fly around, buzzing annoyingly, oblivious to their own demise.

Entelechy on March 3, 2009 at 12:52 PM

If Rush becomes the Face of conservatism, how does that help republicans engage with their Lost Demographics?

Doesn’t matter…by 2020, the only whites in this country who’ll still be voting for — and more importantly, donating to — Democrats will be those you see freezing their a$$es off at global warming rallies (i.e. students and professors) and shining their teeth with Vaseline at the Oscars (i.e. actors).

The rest — meaning, those who live in the real world — will be scared sh!tless as they slowly realize that they no longer recognize their own country or culture. When that happens, they’ll drop the Dems like a wet towel.

rvastar on March 3, 2009 at 12:54 PM

Because Allah and Brooks hold hands… They think they represent the “moderates”, the “center”… Actualy they represent the ones that have been TOTALY WRONG ABOUT THE MESSIAH!!! And now they are waking up… Waking to the message that Rush and REAL Conservatives warned of…

But NOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo, they wanted the “big tent” Dem-Lite Republican party and like Buckley Jr. “prayed” Obama was going to work the center, not be a radical…

ALL, except Allah so far have woke up… I saw Jr post how this is NOT the Obama he knew… ROFL !

MORONS!

Mark Garnett on March 3, 2009 at 11:56 AM

I suggest Christopher Buckley be forced to re-read that moronic piece on the air, every time the Dow drops another 500 points.

One salutary effect of America’s national Obama nightmare will be the difficulty future Democrat candidates will have in pretending they’re moderate centrists who just run a bit to the left. There will always be an appetite among the foolish and envious for a candidate who runs to the left, but much as the ruins of the Carter administration proved to be radioactive terrain for Democrats until Bill Clinton, it will be a generation before the Buckley Jrs, Noonans, and Brooks of the world try endorsing a liberal socialist in the hope he won’t try to implement the suicidal policies he campaigned on.

Things will change a lot when America manages to put Obama behind it. Many things that were not previously up for discussion will be on the table. One of conservatism’s biggest challenges has been the way its ideas and policies are pre-emptively ruled out before they’re seriously discussed, never mind tried. Remember when the idea to stimulate the economy with a payroll tax holiday, instead of a trillion dollars of pork spending, was floated? The Left had absolutely no response to that idea, and they never will – they just blink and clear their throats until their media auxilliary manages a collective sigh, and turns back to reporting on the glories of thirty-two billion dollar condom distribution programs. The most obvious response to an economic downturn is increasing productivity and opportunity by reducing tax rates, but this idea is never even up for discussion… as if dollars only become real after they’ve been deposited in the Treasury, and all the apparatchicks have taken their cut.

This, I believe, will (and must) be one of the most important changes to come from the post-Obama reconstruction. The very notion that government is a participant in the economy, rather than an impartial overseer, must be challenged, along with the commonly accepted principle that government is entitled to claim a portion of economic activity, instead of being paid for out of the economy’s profits. The central conceit of socialism, that government is a powerful and deadly “silent partner” to every business and consumer, able to take whatever portion of the gross value of economic transactions it sees fit, is ridiculous and must be put down once and for all.

Government is an expense – a necessary one, but like all expenses, its purchasers should be expected to pay for it as they go, with full awareness of the price being paid. Like all expenses, its amount should be carefully monitored, and its growth kept to a minimum. The abolition of deficit spending, the elimination of “invisible” automatic paycheck deductions, and a dramatic simplification of the tax code should be important reforms on the reconstruction agenda. How many votes would Obama’s deranged schemes have gotten if he had been legally required to end every speech with a CBO-audited list of the taxes every income bracket would pay annually for each of his programs, in a system where federal budgets are balanced every year by Constitutional law? How many middle-class taxpayers would fall for socialist twaddle if they had to write a check for their tax bill every quarter?

I also think a full top-secret clearance background check should be required of all presidential candidates before they are accepted on the national ballot, but we can discuss that after we fix the economy.

Doctor Zero on March 3, 2009 at 12:57 PM

Khrushchev was right – with enough rope we will hang ourselves. The gnats in here just fly around, buzzing annoyingly, oblivious to their own demise.

Entelechy on March 3, 2009 at 12:52 PM

Some will, some won’t

The lay down and die group are in every generation. I read somewhere that only 30 percent of the colonials supported the Revolution. The other 70 percent, I see some of them at the RNC. Bunch of toadies and beggars

I do know that the idiots want conservatives to lay down and die.

The science fiction term is: Accept your fate!

If I go down it will be for my principles not someone else’s. My Polish immigrant Grandmother wrote a letter to Kruschev after he banged his shoe on the table and called him an ‘old fool’. This was back when many family members were vulnerable in the old country. One relative was fighter pilot in the Soviet military (drafted I heard).

The GOP right now is not a pretty sight. The Congress is a mess on both sides. Decadent fools and dirty rats. On the other hand, fools and weaklings are vulnerable to people willing to fight the good fight

entagor on March 3, 2009 at 1:08 PM

entagor, that’s the spirit!

Entelechy on March 3, 2009 at 1:15 PM

If these so-called “independents” and “moderates” would educate themselves

Like that will happen.
There is no truth-in-advertising in politics, l33tpriest.
The moderates and independents won’t educate themselves, and Rush sure isn’t going to.
All the dems have to do is not sukk as bad as the republicans.
I mean….they perceive that the republicans served up the econopalypse to working class Americans.
Perception is Reality.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 1:16 PM

rvastar….consider Great Britain.
And Scandanavia….increasing size of the welfare stateleads to increasing secularization.
White married christians aka the conservative base are an endangered subspecies.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 1:19 PM

Also…disapproval rating for republican congress persons is 68%.
See how powerless pouting works out for you?

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 1:22 PM

Also…disapproval rating for republican congress persons is 68%.
See how powerless pouting works out for you?

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 1:22 PM

I used to live under your rule. You all look alike, act alike, are easy to spot, to fool even, because you are brainless automatons. I no longer fear you, I despise you and I’ll literally destroy you. I’ll starve you to death.

Entelechy on March 3, 2009 at 1:26 PM

I mean….they perceive that the republicans served up the econopalypse to working class Americans.
Perception is Reality.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 1:16 PM

Quite true, but reality is going to start feeling a hell of a lot more real to them when cap-and-trade hits, and they’re suddenly shelling out $4.50 for a gallon of gas, or paying $6.00 for a loaf of bread. Then stagflation will kick in, and the only thing we’ll be missing for our trip to the Carter years is a “Welcome Back Kotter” revival. Ask anyone who lived through the late 70s if they can ever forget what Carter was like.

Doctor Zero on March 3, 2009 at 1:39 PM

Ahhh. Rush is addressing the Steele apology/MSM take on it now.

OmahaConservative on March 3, 2009 at 1:41 PM

Perception is Reality.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 1:16 PM

The clueless believe clichés.

The brainpowered ones know that reality is reality. Yours is a Utopian ideological self-destructing nightmare, for you too, but you don’t know it, yet.

Entelechy on March 3, 2009 at 1:45 PM

McCain was not a moderate; he ran as a tradtional Conservative. Anyone who followed the campaign and watched the McCain-Palin rallies knows this.
Atlanta Voter on March 3, 2009 at 10:22 AM

So true; Just not in the way that you are trying to pretend.

McCain was not a moderate: Except for his dislike of pork spending and pro military attitude, he would have to move slightly to to the right to be a moderate.

He RAN as a traditional conservative…. But people who actually understand what conservativism is could see that he was only pretending.

Anyone who followed his career over the last nine years and watched his actions rather than his occasional pseudo-conservative pretenses would know this.

LegendHasIt on March 3, 2009 at 1:59 PM

Like that will happen.
There is no truth-in-advertising in politics, l33tpriest.
The moderates and independents won’t educate themselves, and Rush sure isn’t going to.
All the dems have to do is not sukk as bad as the republicans.
I mean….they perceive that the republicans served up the econopalypse to working class Americans.
Perception is Reality.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 1:16 PM

First off, you’re not teaching me anything I don’t already know, don’t patronize me.

Second, I don’t give a damn who believes what. If moderates and liberals choose to create a socialist America, states will secede from the union and form their own government and militia, and lay waste to any liberal tree-hugging faggot Army.

The answer? Arm yourself and wait.

leetpriest on March 3, 2009 at 2:07 PM

Anyone who followed his career over the last nine years and watched his actions rather than his occasional pseudo-conservative pretenses would know this.

LegendHasIt on March 3, 2009 at 1:59 PM

I didn’t even have to follow the guy’s career. Any idiot can smell McCain’s stench.

leetpriest on March 3, 2009 at 2:11 PM

White married christians aka the conservative base are an endangered subspecies.

Yes, they are…as are Britain and the Scandinavian nations themselves, since all have govts that are currently sucking up 40+% of their nations’ annual GDPs to keep their ridiculously unsustainable Nanny states afloat. And that number is only going up.

But hey, the Left has never been big on letting a little thing called “reality” cast any doubt on its belief in Social Claus and the Tax Fairy.

“Yes, We Can!”

Also…disapproval rating for republican congress persons is 68%. See how powerless pouting works out for you?

Yeah, that is terrible…I guess it’s just too bad for you Lefties that voters have to wait until Nov. 2010 to go to the polls again, eh? By that time, I’ve got the strangest feeling that the American people — well, the productive ones, anyway — will have had just about all the Hope and Change they can stomach :)

rvastar on March 3, 2009 at 2:15 PM

It’s OK to support Rush and still be a conservative. :)
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/arachel/2009/03/03/c-packin/
It’s winnowing time, sisters and brothers.
Randy

williars on March 3, 2009 at 2:18 PM

l33tpriest, since you are a scifi fan…..secession doesn’t work out all that great in Richard Morgan’s Thirteen.
There’s a damn big fence around the Conferated States of America, but it isn’t there to keep people out of Jesusland.
It’s there to keep them in a real life version of the Handmaids Tale, just like the theocrats are trying to impose on North Dakota.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 2:59 PM

And….there are what?
Seven, eight states in the deep red south?
And none of them are exactly big in defense contracting.
Good luck with that super powered militia.
;)

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 3:03 PM

LegendHaslt at March 3, 2009 at 1:59 PM

It is what it is. McCain did choose Palin, but alas like a leopard, could not change his spots. Yes, the financial meltdown, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, and McCain’s vote for Tarp I destroyed McCain’s candidacy but his refusal to attack, attack, and attack Obama on his associations with a vengeance, his legitimization of Obama by saying American had nothing to worry about if Obama was elected President, and his refusal to label Obama a socialist and to make a case for liberty and the pursuit of individual happiness allowed Obama to coast to the finish line.

No matter what Sarah Palin did, and she did a lot, she could not make up for McCain’s deficiencies. That McCain attracted close to 60m votes is not so much a tribute to McCain’s gift of persuasion but the ability of Sarah Palin to neutralize Obama’s superstar appeal. Anybody who really believes that McCain could have gotten 60m votes with Lieberman, Pawlenty or Romney as a running mate is not being intellectually honest.

And to reinforce this point if Sarah did not play a key role in achieving this result why is she still the focal point of millions and millions of comservatives. Don’t you think that Obama and the MSM want Sarah to go away? And since the Chambliss re-run Sarah has kept a low profile. And last week in a CNN poll Sarah is leading for the 2012 GOP nomination.

technopeasant on March 3, 2009 at 3:37 PM

If Steel says what he doesn’t think, he should step down.

Simple.

AnninCA on March 3, 2009 at 4:37 PM

The real question should read something like as follows:

Michael Steele is looking more and more like a complete stumblebum. Should the GOP cut him loose now or give him more time and thus run the risk of Steele screwing things up even worse than they are now?

Percy_Peabody on March 3, 2009 at 4:46 PM

And Scandanavia….increasing size of the welfare stateleads to increasing secularization.
White married christians aka the conservative base are an endangered subspecies.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 1:19 PM

Wrong again. I am from Norway, and the opposite happened. An increased welfare state lead to a huge surge in support for Right wing parties.

The Progress Party in Norway (a carbon copy of the GOP; christian right, supports huge tax cuts, death penalty, Iraq war, etc) went from 2% to being the largest party in the country thanks to the ever-expanding welfare state and all the mess it created.

Norwegian on March 3, 2009 at 5:46 PM

l33tpriest, since you are a scifi fan…..secession doesn’t work out all that great in Richard Morgan’s Thirteen.

Thus the fiction portion of it.

There’s a damn big fence around the Conferated States of America, but it isn’t there to keep people out of Jesusland.
It’s there to keep them in a real life version of the Handmaids Tale, just like the theocrats are trying to impose on North Dakota.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 2:59 PM

You’re either high on something, or extremely stupid.

And….there are what?
Seven, eight states in the deep red south?
And none of them are exactly big in defense contracting.
Good luck with that super powered militia.
;)

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 3:03 PM

Fort Benning
Fort Hood
Fort Knox
Fort Campbell
Fort Leonard Wood
Fort Bliss
Fort Sam Houston
Fort Rucker
Fort Riley
Fort Leavenworth
Fort Polk
Fort Huachuca
Fort Gordon
Fort Stewart

That’s Army bases in Red states alone. So lets see, we have the majority of the Cavalry, MP, Air Assault, Signal Corps, Tank, Airborne, Rangers, and SF. We even have a nice federal pen. to keep you filthy libs in. You have the…..Mountain Division, and a few stray Stryker-equipped infantry divisions. 57% of the military considers themselves republican, 13% democrat.

I wonder who they’ll align with?

Good luck with that loss of 3/4 of your military.

leetpriest on March 3, 2009 at 5:48 PM

David Frum just stated on the Hugh Hewitt Show that Rush Limbaugh is to the Republican Party what Jesse Jackson is to the Democrat Party.

That statement concluded Frum’s analysis that Limbaugh is the most unpopular American alive today.

And Frum was set up on the show to deliver his repentance to the GOP for being such a snob.

maverick muse on March 3, 2009 at 7:12 PM

Allahpundit,

Time for the obligatory “Can’t We All Just Get Along” thread?

maverick muse on March 3, 2009 at 7:14 PM

moronpriest
Im a defense contractor.
And may i point out, the AF and modo defense contracting happens right here in Colorado…..a blue state now, like most of them. ;)
I have one thing to say to all the secessionist crypto-neanderthals here……if you’re gonna take on our country’s Airforce…..well…just wait until dark.
lol

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 8:51 PM

Someone very bright once said to meh that Perception is Reality.
If Rush becomes teh Face of conservatism, how does that help republicans engage with their Lost Demographics?

I dunno, you tell me about why no one cares about someone like me as a lost dempgraphic, when I finally tired of the republicans offering only liberal light as my voting options, and I have a rather conservative outlook. Why do people like you never worry about the Lost demographics of people that fit my profile?

Noelie on March 3, 2009 at 9:08 PM

l33tpriest, since you are a scifi fan…..secession doesn’t work out all that great in Richard Morgan’s Thirteen.
There’s a damn big fence around the Conferated States of America, but it isn’t there to keep people out of Jesusland.
It’s there to keep them in a real life version of the Handmaids Tale, just like the theocrats are trying to impose on North Dakota.

strangelet on March 3, 2009 at 2:59 PM

And I will just bet, along with believing really bad fiction, you think it is really Christians in disguise out there beheading folks etc., as opposed to that “religion of peace”.

Just a note on the abortion “ban”: there are plenty of folks NOT Christian “theocrats” that find it rather illogical that libs like yourself will go out crying for animals, but don’t find the slaughter of our young astounding, and that some sort of limit should be placed on just how long a mother can bloody her hands with the death of her offspring.

Choice? Babe, she had choice when she choose to have sex. If she isn’t mature enough for the consequence, why should her potentially more worthy offspring to the needs of society have to pay the price? and don’t give me your old rape and incest song and dance. Do you have any clue how much of abortion those cover?

Noelie on March 3, 2009 at 9:14 PM

Comment pages: 1 … 6 7 8