Defending Michael Steele: No, He May Not Have Attacked Palin As “Old News”
Updated below with response from the reporter.
RNC chair Michael Steele is taking some grief from the right, and mockery from the left, for allegedly saying that Sarah Palin is “old news” and claiming she’s not from “the generation of candidates I’m trying to groom.”
This is the sort of gaffe that could torment Steele for days and create real problems, given the passionate intensity of the GOP’s Palin wing. The DNC just blasted out the quote to reporters.
But he may not have said this at all, it turns out. The whole tale is based on an Indianapolis Star account of a Steele speech which initially did suggest he’d said this. But here’s the latest version of the article:
Having already lost control of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008, the party has been battered in recent months with admissions of infidelity by two prominent party members — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Nevada Sen. John Ensign — and the surprising announcement by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin that she will resign as Alaska’s governor at the end of the month…
Steele on Wednesday brushed off the recent incidents involving Sanford and Ensign as “old news, old-school.”
“That’s not the generation of candidates I’m trying to groom,” he said.
I’ve contacted the reporter, but for now it looks like Steele wasn’t talking about Palin; he may have only been talking about Sanford and Ensign. Which you can bet is a great relief to Steele’s handlers over at the RNC…
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Update: I should note that there are conflicting reports right now, so I can’t be certain that Steele didn’t attack Palin; I’ve edited the hed to reflect this. But the IndyStar’s latest version says he didn’t.
Update II: The Indy Star reporter on the story, Vic Ryckaert, just got in touch and confirmed that Steele wasn’t talking about Palin.
“Michael Steele was talking specifically about Ensign and Sanford, not Palin,” he told me. “As soon as I saw the earlier version, which could have led people to think he was talking about all three, I had it fixed.” Ryckaert added that the above version is accurate.
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I don’t care if he said it or not. Put it out there anyway. They do it all the time. Fire with fire. That’s my motto.
Here is the thing, he may or may not have been talkign about Palin but its striking that he was talking about the other 2 Republicans who have recently been making headliines and then when he pointed to the people he is “grooming” he didn’t mention Sarah Palin in that group either. So which group does she fit in for Steele? Or does she just not exist to him anymore?
I’m still waiting for someone to produce a video (youtube-able?) that combines two stereotypical Palin memes …
1. Palin rambling nigh incoherently in front of a camera while failing to make a point (see resignation speech for starting point)
2. “You can’t blink.”
“You can’t blink.”
“You can’t blink.”
“You can’t blink.”
Because when destiny calls, Sarah Palin knows … you can’t blink.