Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Keep the Change

RNC Chair Michael Steele spoke to state party chairmen yesterday. Among the nuggets:

The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done. The time for trying to fix or focus on the past has ended. The era of Republican navel gazing is over. We have turned the corner on regret, recrimination, self-pity and self-doubt. Now is the hour to focus all of our energies on winning the future.

He then cited Edmund Burke, William F. Buckley, and Ronald Reagan as the “moorings” of the GOP. The fact that all three men are dead — Mr. Burke over 200 years gone — says a lot about winning the future.

The honeymoon is over. We are going to challenge those policies that we believe are wrong, and we are going to do so without apology and without a second thought.

But there is a very important distinction I want to make here.

We are going to take this president on with class. We are going to take this president on with dignity. This will be a very sharp and marked contrast to the shabby and classless way that the Democrats and the far left spoke of President Bush.

And with Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Cheney speaking out on behalf of the Republican Party, they’re just reeking with class and dignity.

And then he tops it off by reminding us just how they’re going to bring us change and by what vessel:

Too bad the chattering classes inside the Beltway are too busy fretting over phony disputes and intra-party intrigue to notice that a change has indeed come to America. But it’s not the one the Obama Administration wants aired on the nightly news.

Those of you who live outside of Washington know what I’m talking about. Those of you who actually attend Lincoln Day dinners, and county party events, those of you who toil in the vineyards, spending time in communities, in diners, in barber shops, and in coffee shops where real, every day people can be found. You know it is real. You can see it and feel it.

This change comes in a tea bag!

Ladies and gentleman, Michael Steele; the gift that keeps on giving.

I think it’s amusing how Mr. Steele speaks of “no more apologies, no more self-doubt, no more recriminations,” and how they’re going to be classy, dignified, and the font of new ideas when they haven’t apologized for anything, the loudest voices in the party is a man in a glass booth who demands absolute loyalty to him and not the party, and their newest idea is to have a meeting to form a study group to come up with new ideas. They look to the future by harking back to the past, and they mock Barack Obama for being a celebrity when at the same time they worship the memory of Ronald Reagan, who got to where he was by being a celebrity. So far the only idea they’ve come up with is calling the opposition party names like “Democrat Socialist” and being unintentionally funny with their constant references to teabagging.

As Steve Benen put it, the GOP meme goes like this: “‘We’ll be the party of new ideas just as soon as we think of some new ideas. In the meantime, socialism, handshake, 9/11.'”

It’s like the RNC was one long episode of The Colbert Report.