According to Politico.com Republican Party Chair Michael Steele does not know his place.

The political website reports a heated meeting took place between Steele and some of the Republican leadership in Congress in which Steele was told to keep his nose out of public policy and focus on fundraising.

To make it plain, he “was placed on a short leash, ” according to a Republican aide who was at the meeting.

Steele, the former Lt. Governor of Maryland is the first African-American to run the Republican National Committee.

Political bloggers at BlackVoices are not surprised at all about the way Republicans treat Steele.

Matter of fact there has been rumbling at the start by some GOP officials that Steele will be removed from office if the GOP does not do well in the 2010 elections.

The FreshXpress blog asks if Steele a classic example of when “keepin’ it token goes wrong,” or is he a competent politician who is simply being undermined by his own party?

Pretty good question to ask.

Maybe Rep. Joe Wilson’s apology for calling President Obama a liar on national TV didn’t feel that sincere, but President Obama accepted it anyway. Obama, choosing to focus on getting a health care reform bill passed by Congress, said that he was pleased that Wilson, an avowed anti-Obamaist, had apologized “quickly and without equivocation.” It was during the president’s address to the joint session of Congress that Wilson shouted “You Lie!” as Obama explained that his proposal would not cover those in the United States illegally. Even members of Wilson’s own Republican Party expressed embarrassment over the outburst, and several of them prompted the four-term South Carolina representative to say he was sorry. “This evening I let my emotions get the best of me,” he said in a statement. “While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.” But then, a seemingly not-so-sorry Wilson noted that his comments were “spontaneous.” Offered Wilson, “It was when he (Obama) stated, as he did, about not (health care insurance) not covering illegal aliens … We need to discuss the issues and I’m happy to do that.” But Obama chose to focus on health care, saying, “We all make mistakes.” The president’s decision to let the matter go is perhaps what led to fellow Democrats in Congress dropping the issue. “It’s time for us to talk about health care, not Mr. Wilson,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. It remains to be seen whether his “spontaneous” remarks will cost him politically. Already, his Web site crashed, following the quip, and both Republicans and Democrats Twittered him to a pulp about what they deemed objectionable behavior. “I was embarrassed for the chamber and a Congress I love,” Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It demeaned the institution.”

By Ed Wiley III
 
Surely, Michael Steele had a completely different expectation of what it would be like to break through the ultimate glass ceiling and become the HBIC – the Head Brother in Charge – of the GOP. After all, he likely pondered, the Democrats had gotten an HBIC of their own, and they lifted him up as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln. But when Obama ascended to his party’s throne, there wasn’t a 300-pound shock jock with a boat load of money and a following of 20 million listeners already heating the cushion. So the challenge for Steele has been to figure out a way to wrest the reins of power from that shock jock, Rush Limbaugh, who is proving much more formidable than Steele ever could have imagined. Click for the full story.

 Right-wing Republican Alan Keyes is back at it again, lobbing criticisms at President Obama that are more caustic than constructive. The former U.S. ambassador and presidential hopeful is reiterating his point that President Obama was not born in the United States. In a video he released this weekend, Keyes, who lost to Obama in the 2004 Illinois Senate race, says Obama is an “abomination.” He also argues that the United States will cease to exist if Obama is not removed from power, calling the president a “communist and usurper.” Alan Keyes is a conservative Republican who failed in his bids to become president and U.S. senator. In 2005, Keyes disowned his daughter, Maya, 19,  now a Democrat and political activist, after she came out as a lesbian. He said all lesbians are guilty of “selfish hedonism.”
What do you think about Keyes’ comments?

The county chief is being accused of hatching a very un-American plot

The head of the Michigan’s Macomb County Republican Party, which is in a key swing county in the upcoming presidential election, denied charges late Thursday that he had hatched a plot to block residents with foreclosed homes from voting in November. Read more about the alleged plot at BET.com/News.

Palin’s a “cocky wacko,” according to an unlikely source. When you think of former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, the first things that likely come to mind are mellow, under-the-radar, diplomatic. That’s why his recent insights regarding Sen. John McCain’s presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, raised an eyebrow or two. She’s a “cocky wacko,” the Republican-turned-Independent told the Washington, D.C.-based New America Foundation Tuesday. “People were coming into my office, phone calls were flooding in, e-mails were coming in, ‘I just sent money to Obama, I couldn’t sleep last night’ – from the left. To see this cocky wacko up there,” said Chafee, who was the only Republican senator to stand against President Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He also told the policy thinktank that Sen. John McCain’s campaign is “lackluster” and that Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, has merely energized Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters. Chafee endorsed Obama earlier this year.

Voter Registration: The decision of who leads the United States for the next four years could very well come down to you. Find out how at BET.com/News.

He said he didn’t realize his comments about Barack’s “big lips” were offensive.
College Republican chief is forced to resign. The head of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans gave up his seat this week after getting slammed for a racist comment he posted online about Sen. Barack Obama. In late July, Adam LaDuca, 21, a senior at Kutztown University, wrote on his Facebook page that Obama has “a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)” But it’s not the first time LaDuca has fired off barbs at prominent Black leaders. Among his other gems, he called Martin Luther King Jr. a “pariah” and a “fraud” and that “Man, if sayin’ someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we’re ALL in trouble.” But his slurs were even too much for his fellow College Republicans, who asked him to step down. The remarks blew up after they were publicized in the Pennsylvania Progressive, a blog written by a Democratic committeeman from Berks County. “The comments were completely uncalled for and very offensive,” said Anthony Pugliese, 22, a senior at West Chester University and chairman of the College Republicans, which has more than 50 chapters statewide. “The P-A College Republicans do not accept or tolerate racism in any way.” DaLuca said he wishes he hadn’t published the big-lips comment. “In hindsight, when you read it a second time, it’s like, ‘oops,’” he said. “It was just a dumb move on my part to make a statement like that public.”

A Baby on Board the Republican Ticket?

So what’s up with John McCain’s running mate?  Is there anything else she would like to share with the American people before she accepts the nomination at the Republican National Convention? Get more at Pamela On Politics.

Gustav is making waves for Republicans.

Sen. John McCain has called for the Republican Party to scale back its convention in Minneapolis , citing Hurricane Gustav’s potential to inflict “a great national disaster” on the people in the Gulf Coast region.

MoveOn.org targets McCain VP pick. The activist political group, which has an uncanny knack for getting on a Republican politician’s last nerve, has turned its sights on Sen. John McCain and his recently announced running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Saying that the American people “need to see” the facts about the new GOP veep, MoveOn.org has taken the Republican Party’s biggest charge lodged against Sen. Barack Obama and turned it against Palin: an apparent lack of experience. The woman McCain has chosen to be “one heartbeat away from the presidency” is “a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of [ Wasilla , Alaska ] a town of 9,000 people.” The liberal-leaning political group, established in the aftermath of President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, notes that Palin, who hopes to rein in some of the former Clinton-supporting women who aren’t too hip on Obama, is a staunch opponent of abortion, even in the case of rape and incest. It also points out that Palin was a strong supporter of Pat Buchanan, who has been publicly flogged on more than one occasion for racially insensitive comments. In other examples of extremism, MoveOn.org notes, Palin does not believe humans are responsible for climate change. “How closely did John McCain vet this choice?” the group asks on its Web site. “He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.” But what MoveOn.org doesn’t acknowledge is that the 44-year-old governor, the first woman ever to get a major-party nomination as vice president, helped create a new sub-cabinet group of advisers to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska . In late-July a state poll showed her with an 80-percent approval rating.

What’s the Obamacans’ impact?

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign knows a win in November will require more than the party faithful. He’ll need to woo Republicans to his camp, and it appears the first wave of crossovers are ready to venture across the aisle. Get the latest on this story from Pamela On Politics.