Posted on 03/02/2009 3:20:29 PM PST by Dan Nunn
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.”
“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.”
The dust-up comes at a time when top Democrats are trying to make Limbaugh the face of the Republican Party, in part by using ads funded by labor. Americans United for Change sent a fund-raising e-mail Monday that begins: “The Republican Party has turned into the Rush Limbaugh Party.”
Steele told CNN host D.L. Hughley in an interview aired Saturday night: “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh — his whole thing is entertainment. He has this incendiary — yes, it's ugly.”
Steele, who won a hard-fought chairman's race on Jan. 30, told Politico he telephoned Limbaugh after his show on Monday afternoon and hoped that they would connect soon.
“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. "It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not."
“I’m not going to engage these guys and sit back and provide them the popcorn for a fight between me and Rush Limbaugh,” Steele added. “No such thing is going to happen. … I wasn’t trying to slam him or anything.”
On Monday’s show, Limbaugh reacted both to the comment and to the assertion on CBS’s “Face the Nation” by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that the radio host is “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
Limbaugh said: “I'm not in charge of the Republican Party, and I don't want to be. I would be embarrassed to say that I'm in charge of the Republican Party in the sad-sack state that it's in. If I were chairman of the Republican Party, given the state that it's in, I would quit. I might get out the hari-kari knife because I would have presided over a failure that is embarrassing to the Republicans and conservatives who have supported it and invested in it all these years.”
On the RushLimbaugh.com home page, the transcript is labeled: “A Few Words for Michael Steele.”
In the interview with Politico, Steele called Limbaugh “a very valuable conservative voice for our party.”
“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.”
agree flint.. If we are going to rise above the fray...we will have to be more tolerant. OooH that word tolerance..I know people dont like it, but it doesnt mean giving up your values it may mean admitting your wrong sometimes!
Thanks
Plain and simple, that's not an apology in any way, shape or form.
AMEN!!! And doing your job right now means that every word out of your your mouth should be geared toward hanging this idiotic "stimulus" around the necks of everyone who had a hand in helping it become law!
There are many more qualifications to the position he aspired to than knowing a well timed apology while exiting this job will help him land another.
This reminds me of Geraldo drawing a line in the sand depicting how our forces had cut a road through the desert and were planning to surprise SoDamInsane from a different direction than his counterpart Baghdad Bob expected. All the sorries in the world (Actually, he blamed it on the "rats" at NBC, LOL) weren't going to keep him in his assignment.
Not from the Republican Party.
Yes..yes..yees...lol
“My job is to try to bring us all together.”
I don’t want to be brought together with libtards. I want them defeated, so soundly that they are not a force for at least the rest of my life.
Cut me a brake,he said some things about a radio host.
That' nice Mr Steele, no I suggest you polish up the resume...
Well written!
That is definitely the vibe I am getting off him right now!
These are the same ones that brag about their "purist conservativeness"...brand anyone they don't agree with 100% a RINO...and directly or indirectly, they are greatly responsible for helping put obama into office!
He needs to get off the damn TV. He obviously can't handle refuting garbage. The Hughley tape was nine minutes of torture, and all Steele did was pander, nod his head and let the "Nazi convention" comment just sail on by, while appearing to agree with it. And those "ugly" and "incendiary" comments slipped out a bit too glibly to just brush away. Does he agree with Hughley? Do his beliefs depend on who his audience is? Who knows?
He should either resign or shut up and do the job he was elected to do -- the Republican Party needs reorganization, closed primaries and some kind of rapport with the grass roots -- not a TV personality without a spine.
I cannot see how anything could be better than that becoming reality - the K street liberal lites who sold us out need to go as fast as possible.
“The Republican Party has turned into the Rush Limbaugh Party.”
To wit; "I can think of nothing better."
There’s a big difference between, “I’m sorry you were offended,” and “I’m sorry I was WRONG.”
Sounds like one of those "reverse" apologies, not an apology at all.
I totally agree with your #118. Imagine Rush having his “feelings hurt” by such as Michael Steele. The point is Steele hurt the Conservative movement AND the Republican Party—NOT some “feelings”...
Even Reagan made a couple of mistakes. I am convinced that the 11th commandment was one of them. Tolerating RINOs because they have an R after their name, compromising conservative principles for party unity, and voting for the lesser of two evils has not turned out very well. The most recent example is Arlen Specter. There is no trust, including myself, that Republicans will actually do what they say. It's time to clean out the party and rebuild the trust through actions, not just lip service. I am tired of spineless Republicans who will not play hardball and stick to Conservative principles. Conservatism Sells
Michael Steele is a politician, who like most politicians tells the audience he's talking to what they want to hear. Obama pulled one of these same goofs during his campaign when he said one thing in San Francisco and the opposite thing in Pennsylvania.
Steele and Obama have one thing in common....they're both liberals (and pro affirmative action).
Hopefully the net effect of Steele stepping on his crank like this will be a sharp movement to the right.
Exactly!!!! We already know who Steele, the GOP and the RNC are.
Time to stop yammering about the obvious and do something meaningful—like forming a new conservative party that will run conservative candidates.
And don’t tell me it can’t be done. Anything is possible if enough people, time, determination and money get behind it.
The GOP and RNC are nothing more than demrat institutions by another name.
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