Actually, he apparently made comments not dissimilar to the Meet the Press in a newspaper interview in the spring of 2006, as well. I'm working off memory, but it's been quoted several times in the last few days here at FR.
So, it isn't just the Meet the Press segment.
But without his repudiating it, even indirectly, the Meet the Press comments were enough to move Mr. Steele from the “adamantly pro-life” column to the “not sure whether he's really pro-life after all” column. And the second column is an unacceptable place for the Chairman of the Republican Party.
In my own judgment, the Meet the Press comments made him unacceptable as chairman, provided he didn't retract those remarks.
I'm glad you found the LifeSiteNews piece. But I still find it distressing that he so softens and conditions his statement about Roe with “in my personal view.” Part of my problem with that is that it is so darned close to the formula of “I'm personally opposed, but...”
We all say that Mr. Steele is a bright and articulate chap. But that leads to the conclusion that he's playing games here. We could alternatively think that perhaps he's just fumbling with his words, and that on both occasions, this last one and the Meet the Press segment, that he just didn't do a good job of articulating what he really believes.
But that sorta vitiates a big part of the reason many of us thought he'd otherwise be a good party chairman.
So, we wind up either accepting the theory that he's not too bright or articulate after all, or the theory that he's playing games and trying to straddle the fence (which to me is extremely unacceptable on this issue).
sitetest
With all due respect, no, that's not what "we" wind up with--I haven't read the quote you're talking about. And two quotes doesn't a record make.
Need I quote Ronald Reagan's support of abortion while he was governor of California?
Of course not. Selective quotation would be dishonest, and wouldn't show the whole story.
Extensive reading of the extant records of the 1858 debates between Sen. Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, who was campaigning for Douglas's seat in the Senate, shows several things about Lincoln's position in the debates:
Lincoln
- Defended the institution of slavery where it existed
- Opposed only its extension to the Territories and to the Free States
- Refused to admit that Negroes were the social, intellectual, and political equals of European-Americans
- Referred several times to Negroes as "niggers" in a patronizing way (howbeit this was a figure of rhetoric -- a tactic)
- Stated several times that he would not want to marry a Negro woman or see intermarriage and miscegenation between the two (inferentially distinct) societies.
Compare that compendium of debating points with what Lincoln did later. Do they outline his vision? Do they fairly forecast what his political program would look like if/when he were elected either Senator or President?
Now apply that logic to Steele's campaign rhetoric uttered in the middle of a hot round of "MSM Gotcha!" with Tim Russert on Meet the Press, with a U.S. Senate seat up for grabs in a Democrat year.