Steele Confused, Overwhelmed By NPR Interview: ‘Now Wait A Minute. Hold up. … You’re Trying To Be Cute.’
Steele Confused, Overwhelmed By NPR Interview: ‘Now Wait A Minute. Hold up. … You’re Trying To Be Cute.’
In an interview with Michael Steele, NPR’s Steve Inskeep repeatedly asked the RNC chairman to explain why Republicans keep defending Medicare at the same time they claim that the government is incompetent at running anything.
Steele grew frustrated with the questioning, telling Inskeep to stop being “cute” and “doing a wonderful little dance.” But even while admitting that people “like Medicare” and it’s “a valuable program” that’s “the last line of opportunity to receive health care for a lot of our seniors,” he continued to attack it as “bloated” and inefficient. “I’m not saying I like or dislike Medicare,” an exasperated Steele finally said. “It is what it is.”
At one point, Steele tied himself into knots trying to explain his view on the proper role of government after saying that “there are issues in the insurance market that we can regulate a little bit better”:
INSKEEP: Wait, wait — You would trust the government to look into that?
STEELE: No, I’m talking about the private — I’m talking about citizens. I’m talking about — (CROSSTALK)
INSKEEP: Who is it you — You said it is something that should be looked into. Who is it that you think should look into that?
STEELE: Well, who regulates the insurance markets?
INSKEEP: That would be the government, I believe.
STEELE: Well, and so what. Now wait a minute. Hold up. You’re doing a wonderful little dance here and you’re trying to be cute. But the reality of this is very simple. I’m not saying the government doesn’t have a role to play. I’ve never said that. The government does have a role to play; it has a very limited role to play.
INSKEEP: Mr. Chairman, I respect that you think I’m doing a dance here. I just want you to know that as a citizen, I’m a little confused by the positions you take because you’re giving me a very nice nuanced position here —
STEELE: It’s not nice and nuanced. I’m being very clear.
Steele also had to admit that sometimes private insurers do get “between the doctor and the patient,” but he quickly added that if the government were involved, it would be “10 times worse.” Listen here:
Toward the end of the interview, Inskeep also asked Steele whether it was “challenging” to explain the health care situation to Americans in a way that “doesn’t just kind of scare people with soundbites.” Steele insisted, “No one’s trying to scare people with soundbites. I have not done that, and I don’t know any leaders in the House and the Senate that have done that.” (Of course, many Republicans in Congress have been using these soundbites, and Steele himself has endorsed them.)
Steele has been all over the map in recent weeks, trying to square the GOP’s dogmatic positions with the realities of health care in America. He has fear-mongered about death panels, and then said that no one should be using such soundbites. He has criticized cost-cutting savings to Medicare, then said that such measures may be warranted. In today’s interview, all those positions finally caught up with him.
Transcript:
STEELE: What makes it a valuable program is it’s the last line of opportunity to receive health care for a lot of our seniors, and it has been now since the 1960s. The problem, as we all know, is the system has been raided over the years from time to time, it’s become bloated, and in some cases, efficiencies have not been maxed out. Therefore it’s running into problems where, you know, every few years we’re having stories about Medicare falling apart, and we’ve already projected it’s going to —
INSKEEP: It’s going to run out of money.
STEELE: Exactly.
INSKEEP: But you’re coming here reducing the spending for Medicare, restraining Medicare.
STEELE: No, no, no. That’s not coming out against reducing the spending for Medicare. That’s a wonderful interpretation by the left, but what I was saying was, “Don’t go raiding the program without some sense of what we’re taking from the program, the impact it’s going to have on the senior citizens out there.” You know, raiding a program that’s already bankrupt to pay for another program that we can’t afford is not good public policy.
INSKEEP: So you would be in favor of certain cuts?
STEELE: Absolutely. You want to maximize the efficiencies of the program. I mean, anyone who’s in the program would want you to do that, and certainly those who manage it want you to do that.
INSKEEP: Here’s another thing I’m trying to figure out. Within a couple of paragraphs of writing, “We need to protect Medicare,” you write that you oppose President Obama’s “plan for a government-run health care system.” Now you’re a veteran public policy official. You’re aware that Medicare is a government-run health care program.
STEELE: Yeah, and look how it’s run! And that’s my point. Take Medicare and make it writ-large across the country, because how many times have we been at the precipice of bankruptcy for a government-run health care program?
INSKEEP: It sounds like you don’t like Medicare very much at all –
STEELE: No, I’m not saying that all —
INSKEEP: But you write in this op-ed that you want to protect Medicare because it’s politically popular. People like Medicare; that’s why you’re writing to protect Medicare.
STEELE: No, no, no. People may like Medicare, and liking a program and having it run efficiently are sometimes two different things. The reality of it is simply this: I’m not saying I like or dislike Medicare. It is what it is. It is a program that has been around for over 40 years, and in those 40 years, it has not been run efficiently or well enough to sustain itself. You have Medicare, you have Amtrak, the post office — all these government-run agencies that try to inject themselves into private markets typically don’t do too well. My only point is okay, Medicare is what it is. It’s not going anywhere, so let’s focus on fixing it so that we don’t every three, five, 10 years have discussions of bankruptcy and running out of money.
INSKEEP: I’m still having a little trouble with the notion that you’re going to write to protect Medicare, you’re going to preserve this program, that you’re going to make sure that this government-run health care program stays solvent in the long-term –
STEELE: Let’s get it to run right.
INSKEEP: — and yet you’re opposing “government-run health care.”
STEELE: Wait a minute. Just because, you know, I want to protect something that’s already in place and make it better and run efficiently for the senior citizens that are in that system doesn’t mean that I want to automatically support nationalizing or creating a similar system for everyone else in the country who isn’t already in Medicare.
INSKEEP: Let me ask another question here because you warn that some of the proposals out there would “create government boards that would decide what treatments would or would not be funded.” You want that treatment to be between the doctor and the patient. When a private insurance company pays now, what is your impression of who decides what that private insurance company is going to cover? Is that purely between the doctor and the patient now?
STEELE: Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. It depends on the type of treatment and the medicines that are at stake, and I’ve had that same example experienced my own self, where I’ve needed a certain type of medication and the insurance company is like, “You can have, but we’ll only pay for this amount or this portion.” I don’t like that anymore than I like the government doing it.
My point is, you know, if the government is going to do it, it’s going to do it 10 times worse and it’s going to be more pronounced than the private insurers, and I think that’s a feature that we can fix right now. Sure, there are issues in the insurance market that we can regulate a little bit better and that we can control better to maximize the benefits to the consumers. That’s something that yeah, we can rightly reform and fix.
INSKEEP: Wait, wait — You would trust the government to look into that?
STEELE: No, I’m talking about the private — I’m talking about citizens. I’m talking about — (CROSSTALK)
INSKEEP: Who is it you — You said it is something that should be looked into. Who is it that you think should look into that?
STEELE: Well, who regulates the insurance markets?
INSKEEP: That would be the government, I believe.
STEELE: Well, and so what. Now wait a minute. Hold up. You’re doing a wonderful little dance here and you’re trying to be cute. But the reality of this is very simple. I’m not saying the government doesn’t have a role to play. I’ve never said that. The government does have a role to play; it has a very limited role to play.
INSKEEP: Mr. Chairman, I respect that you think I’m doing a dance here. I just want you to know that as a citizen, I’m a little confused by the positions you take because you’re giving me a very nice nuanced position here —
STEELE: It’s not nice and nuanced. I’m being very clear.
INSKEEP: You’re giving me, nevertheless, a nuanced —
STEELE: What’s nuanced? I’m being very clear!
INSKEEP: What “nuanced” means is you’re not doing it exactly black and white. You recognize the government has a role to play here, but you and your party, come to the actual rhetoric, it seems more along the lines of absolutes. It’s between a patient and a doctor.
STEELE: Well, I’m sorry. I don’t accept your premise, and you have your view and you can see it as nuanced all you want, but the reality –
INSKEEP: I’m not saying nuanced is a bad thing, sir.
STEELE: I’m being very clear. I want to have an open debate. I want to put ideas out there. I want people to understand when it’s all said and done. And seriously, I’m not trying to be nuanced, I’m not trying to be cute, I’m trying to be very clear. I’m not saying the government doesn’t have a role to play here. It does. It’s managing a Medicare program. So it has a role to play.
INSKEEP: Maybe we’re getting hung up on the word “nuanced”; maybe I should say “challenging.” Do you find it challenging to get into this complicated debate and explain things to people in a way that it’s honest to the facts and still very clear –
STEELE: That’s a good point.
INSKEEP: — and doesn’t just kind of scare people with soundbites?
STEELE: Well, no. Look. No one’s trying to scare people with soundbites. I have not done that, and I don’t know any leaders in the House and the Senate that have done that. So yeah, it’s complicated and you want to do that.
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This poor schlub is just so way in over his head. I would argue that almost anyone, including most children and household pets, could do a better job leading the Republican party.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:40 amI thought the point of being a lawyer, or a good lawyer, was never to be very clear, that their power was expressed through ambiguity.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:43 amTPM said it best:
It’s an impossible dance for anyone, but Steele is burdened with two left feet.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:44 amSteele: No one’s trying to scare people with soundbites. I have not done that
Steele, moments earlier: My point is, you know, if the government is going to do it, it’s going to do it 10 times worse
“But I’m not trying to scare people or anything. Why would you even think such a thing?”
August 27th, 2009 at 10:46 amI am sick of old people who think the rest of the country should work themselves to death with no benefits to keep collecting their SS checks and Medicare benefits. 90% of the people at these meetings are old. That’s because everybody else has to go to work. Lots of these old women never worked a day in their lives. How many mothers today get to stay home with their kids? I guess we need a national strike day so everybody who goes to work then comes home to clean the house and feed the kids and only gets to go to the doctor when they’re so ill they go to the emergency room can show up at their Representatives’ offices and speak their minds.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:47 amSTEELE: What’s nuanced? I’m being very clear!
Yeah, clear as MUD.
Idiot. Do us all a favor and just … shut … up.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:50 amIs this the HIP HOP dancing/party that the Steele token has been talking about……..he is very good at talking out of both sides of his pie hole.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:51 amSteele is not being “nuanced”. He is being stupid, inarticulate, intentionally misleading, and unwilling to admit he is wrong.
Steele, we’ve waited several minutes, weeks even. Time is up.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:53 amSteele Confused, Overwhelmed By NPR Interview: ‘Now Wait A Minute. Hold up. … You’re Trying To Be Cute.’
– - Afterward, Steele was heard muttering repeatedly to himself, “Never leave the damn cocoon, never leave the damn cocoon, never leave the damn cocoon…”
August 27th, 2009 at 10:54 amJust what does this guy believe on anything?
Each time he opens his yap, he contradicts himself days later.
What an Uncle Tom he is for all those aging white guys!
It’s a shame that this poor schmuck won’t be able to hear what those white boys actually think of him.
Remember all those anti-Obama cartoons, effigies and the like, all using racist iconography?
Get a clue, Steele.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:55 amOh, I don’t know, Annie… I think Steele DOES do us a favor every time he talks. I mean, who else could tempt NPR to actually dissect the nonsense that the Republicans try to sell as “vision”?
August 27th, 2009 at 10:55 amTrying to lead a group of people who have no direction, don’t really want a direction and don’t want to follow anyone is a challenge in the best of circumstances to the most qualified of individuals. Steele, unfortunately, is falling far short and is, in my humble opinion, the sacrificial lamb that the Republicans will use to demonstrate how ‘progressive’ they are when they can him…
August 27th, 2009 at 10:56 amI listened to this farce, and, for once, was actually hooting with glee at a Steve Inskeep interview (for those who don’t listen to Morning Edition regularly, he’s not usually anywhere near this tough on Republican/Corporate types).
My favorite part was Steele insisting over and over that he wasn’t being “nuanced” as if admitting to dealing with a complex issue in a thorough, non-Manichean manner was somehow akin to a confession of child-cannibalism. Since when is nuance a bad thing?
On the substance, though, Steele and the R’s have no leg to stand on, so double-talk and fear-mongering is apparently the name of the game. And sadly, it seems to be working, because apparently enough seniors will latch onto any excuse, however implausible, to not have to admit to themselves and others that their real attitude is “I got mine, the rest of you can go get stuffed.”
August 27th, 2009 at 10:57 amDid you ever notice that Little Mikey doesn’t have a very big forehead. That’s surprising because bald guys normally have more prominent foreheads.
However, after listening to Little Mikey for lo these many months, I think I understand this. He’s got a small forehead because everything inside has atrophied from lack of use.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:58 amThe repig position is very easy to explain but doesn’t sound very good if not twisted around a lot of fearful talk. Repig position is: American citizens deserve whatever health care Big Insurance says they should have
August 27th, 2009 at 11:00 amThe fact that Steele couldn’t come within two time zones of coherence serves as an indictment of the softballs the infotainment channels regularly toss out without follow up. Inskeep has been doing a better job refining and sharpening his questions recently but Mike Wallace he isn’t. Why did this take so long?
August 27th, 2009 at 11:02 amThis is the RePugniScums “Great Black Dope”
August 27th, 2009 at 11:03 amIt probably won’t be long until some in the repuke leadership finally move to get rid of Mickey Mouse Steele, bringing in their “Great White Hope”…
/snark
August 27th, 2009 at 11:03 amI thought my ears were deceiving me.
Little Steevie Insqueak sounded almost like he had a couple of tiny, vestigial STONES rolled up under his usual fluff and anal tongue-laving of the powerful.
And Steele was obviously non-plussed at the reception. GOPukes NEVER get asked hard questions on NPR (Remember: You cannot spell REPUBLICAN without NPR!)…
Now if NPR will just name Wan Wiliams as a flunky for Murdoch and O’Reilly…
August 27th, 2009 at 11:04 amRarely have I heard Steve Inskeep so tenaciously question an interviewee. I was listening to the interview earlier this morning and just about had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Steele was so flustered and sounded not shockingly like a former VP candidate.
The whole exchange about “Maybe we’re getting hung up on the word ‘nuanced’” was priceless. I would have used obfuscating but that too would have gone over Mikey’s head.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:06 amSahu says:
I listened to this farce, and, for once, was actually hooting with glee at a Steve Inskeep interview (for those who don’t listen to Morning Edition regularly, he’s not usually anywhere near this tough on Republican/Corporate types).
August 27th, 2009 at 10:57 am
_____________
Inskeep is not usually tough on anybody – he’s polite and fair even when interviewing someone who’s completely talking out their ass. That’s why I like his interviews – he lets the idiots speak for themselves.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:06 amWhy didn’t inskeep ask him a simple and straightforwards question: If Medicare is broken, how are you going to “fix” it?
August 27th, 2009 at 11:09 amHeh. I heard this interview this morning. Steele was flailing all over the place. Steele was blustering fast and talking over Inskeep. Is that all the Republicans have? Interruptions and Falsehoods?
August 27th, 2009 at 11:09 amThis is getting strange. We always knew that Republics hate the government. But now, they no longer even know what government is.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:09 amEverywhere Steele goes he leaves
a giant pile of verbal contradictory garbage,
with the intent of hindering any progress the Democrats attempt.
That’s his job.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:10 amThat doesn’t sound very limited to me…
August 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am——————————————————————————–
I’m sure Steele would say that he would fix it by getting the government out of Medicare.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:13 amSTEELE: Well, no. Look. No one’s trying to scare people with soundbites. I have not done that, and I don’t know any leaders in the House and the Senate that have done that. So yeah, it’s complicated and you want to do that.
funny how he says that he doesn’t know any “leader” who have done that. he’s not denying that plenty of people have tried to scare people with soundbites…. he’s just not calling them leaders.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:16 amthis guy is perfect for the job!
August 27th, 2009 at 11:17 amhe represents the party extremely well.
you go, Mikey! you da man!
I am becoming strongly convinced that Steele is a distraction in order to move the seat of Repub power to some covert group.
Hate to sound all tinfoil hat, but Steele is so off the wall and the repubs are doing nothing to fix the situation. There aren’t many explanations that could even remotely explain it.
But with the grandstanders of the party (Steele, Palin, etc.) drawing the press away from the “real” target, exactly who is actually providing the continuity of the party.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:18 amshoeless says:
This is getting strange. We always knew that Republics hate the government. But now, they no longer even know what government is.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:09 am
____________
And yet they want the American people to put them in charge of running it. I just don’t get it. It’s like hiring someone who despises baseball to manage the Mets.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:18 amI heard this on the radio and laughed my ass off.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:19 amNever ceases to amaze. Palin, Steele, Bachmann. How, how, how did people that dumb get to prominent leadership positions. Right, I am talking about Republicans, but still….
August 27th, 2009 at 11:20 amDear me Mr. Steele. I wonder if he struggles to spell his own name. If this is the best the Reich Wing can do to as a political party, they are in deeper trouble than they know.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:22 amtokin librul,
It’s Juan Williams. He is hardly wan.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:24 amIt’s amazing to see so many reich-wing politicians, i.e., government workers, have so much hate for their job. Why do reich-wingers even run for office if they hate it so much!?
August 27th, 2009 at 11:26 amSeems Steele is a bit dizzy from all that spinning lately
August 27th, 2009 at 11:27 amThat’s the great challenge of Republican electoral calculus: they need to convince voters to let someone who hates government, run government. There is no logic behind it. That’s why they embrace fear and anger. It’s all they’ve got.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:28 amSome of the comments from outraged Republics on the NPR site are hysterical (”Inskeep was rude, he owes Steele an apology” etc.). These folks just do not understand the inherent contradiction between claiming that the government must stay out of health care and claiming to support Medicare. Not one Republic has even tried to reconcile that contradiction.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:28 amAmerican Zen’s Mike Flannigan weighs in heavily on Republican hypocrisy and moral relativism after Sen. Kennedy’s death.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:31 amBetter watch out Steele, Rep (R)Jenkins is looking for a great white hope to knock you out.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:31 amOne of the hazards conservatives face when they go out into the real world is that they sometimes have to answer serious questions about complex issues and interviews like this show how isolated conservative spokespeople are.
Anybody can go on Fox “News” and do their little “news” theater because it doesn’t require any thought or effort to march in lockstep. We’ve seen the level of debate that comes out of Fox, right? (”How much is Obama like Hitler anyway? HAW! HAW! HAW!”) This is the same network that got it’s start with shows like “Hard Copy” and “A Current Affair” and they’ve never strayed far from those roots.
The only reason I can think of why Michael Steele would on *NPR*, of all places, is because conservatives have been isolated from reality for so long that they’ve completely bought into their own bulls*it. Think about it. They own their own network. They’ve surrounded themselves with sycophants, back-slapper and ass-kissers. If you spend enough time in that kind of environment, surrounded by people who pat you on your knobby head and tell you how cool your are, you’ll start to lose touch with reality.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:32 amI have to laugh. The GOP shot themselves in the foot when they made Steele their token spokesperson. Of course, were they smart, they would have chose someone with a few more noodles inside the skull. I mean, the guy really doesn’t look any smarter than Boehner.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:33 amSteele is being cutesy wutesy by denying that he doesnt know of any (R) using fear tactics. Steele is a lawyer, the not so good kind that use rhetoric and the ‘I dont recall’ ignorance of facts excuse.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:33 ampaleolib says:
Some of the comments from outraged Republics on the NPR site are hysterical (”Inskeep was rude, he owes Steele an apology” etc.). These folks just do not understand the inherent contradiction between claiming that the government must stay out of health care and claiming to support Medicare. Not one Republic has even tried to reconcile that contradiction.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:28 am
______________
And that’s the punchline. They’re angry about Inskeep calling Steele’s position “nuanced,” which us in the reality-based community view as a positive thing. It could’ve been an opportunity for Steele to lay out the demarcation between what role of government is “good” and what role is “bad.” He was given the opportunity to not talk in silly absolutes, and instead of taking it he got offended by it.
And what is up with the NPR comments – are they getting astroturfed? Surely there can’t be that many conservative listeners of the “liberal-biased NPR,” are there?
August 27th, 2009 at 11:34 amSteele is to the RNC what Ben Nelson is to the Democratic Party.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:41 amWhy don’t all the regular trolls come and stick up for Steele on all these Steele threads.
Can’t think of one instance of it.
Guess it’s because he’s black, and they’re all unreformed racists.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:42 amThis interview was a mess. It gave me a headache, and very poignantly pointed out that the Republicans really don’t have any other plan for addressing the health care situation – other than to obfuscate any attempt to change it. Just say no – to anything – as has been pointed out before.
Steele didn’t have a clue about where to go on this issue. He contracted himself on virtually every sentence spoken, could not coherently take a position on any any front, nor respond to a question with a straight answer, and flip-flopped like a fish on the deck of a boat.
Steele is an incoherent puppet at the helm, but people will listen to him (God only knows why). I hope, wish, and pray, that the American public will wise up very quickly to this flak and crap barrage being spewed at them (as was illustrated in this interview) in the Republican attempt to derail this issue, maintain status quo, and to keep all their lobbyist monies.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:42 am“Nuanced?” The word Inskeep was looking for was “incoherent.” Steele has never understood health insurance reform. And guess what, neither does anybody else. We just all know we’re going to get screwed, the insurance companies are going to make more money, & a handful of incumbents will go into their next campaign with a big fat insurance company paid war chest.
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
August 27th, 2009 at 11:45 amAh… Once again Mr. Steele demonstrates that he is a bountiful load of republican confusion in one convienient, easily used and mislead, package.
Mr. Steele, a wise man once said that a wise man may remain silent and may appear the fool… while the fool opens his mouth and removes all doubt.
Congratulations, Mr. Steele. You have very much removed all doubt.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:47 amCome on trolls, defend this!
August 27th, 2009 at 11:51 amAs God is my witness, I thought Steele would have been dumped as RNC Chair by now. Yes, when one blindly spouts Reagan’s mantra — “government is the problem” — no matter the context or the case where it is irrefutable that government is the solution, one is bound to look foolish much of the time.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:59 amDr. Hussein Matt says:
It’s amazing to see so many reich-wing politicians, i.e., government workers, have so much hate for their job. Why do reich-wingers even run for office if they hate it so much!?
In two words: MONEY & POWER
August 27th, 2009 at 12:03 pmIf a white person had been elected president instead of Pres. Obama, does any rationale thinking person believe that the Regressive Republican Party would have picked Steele to be their chairman?
August 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pmThis jackass does NOT know what he’s talking about.
His mouth, just like those of the other Rushpublic/BushCo types, just have their yap-flapping in the wind all the time but have no clue what they are blathering about.
They LIE, LIE, LIE and then have the balls to stand there like they’ve just read you some gospel. LIARS! HYPOCRITES!!
I AM SICKKKK of them all!
August 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pmSteele’s overwhelmed on the choice of what to eat for breakfast.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:05 pmMr. Steele, meet Mr. Inskeep. He’s a real journalist.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:06 pmSTEELE: Well, no. Look. No one’s trying to scare people with soundbites. I have not done that, and I don’t know any leaders in the House and the Senate that have done that.
Wow! How is it that the chairman of the RNC doesn’t know any Republican leaders in the House and Senate?
August 27th, 2009 at 12:07 pmMr. Steele, meet Mr. Inskeep. He’s a real journalist.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Um, no…
Normally Insqueak’s a reliable prostate tongue-laver for the GOPukes, and NPR is typically supine before its paymasters…
August 27th, 2009 at 12:15 pmHow many of the confused, old, white people who may see this actually think this is Barack Obama?
August 27th, 2009 at 12:16 pmSTEELE: Well, no. Look. No one’s trying to scare people with soundbites. I have not done that, and I don’t know any leaders in the House and the Senate that have done that.
It’s obvious that the fox watchers can’t see a scare sound bite if it actually bit them in the ass. The rest of us our shacking our heads at the ridiculousness of that statement.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:18 pmWhat a tool. Shit stinks, period, Mr. Steele. And you are stepping in it.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:24 pmNothing will have “caught up” to Michael ‘Mighty Mouth’ Steele until that big shark takes a noticable chunk out of his butt on a stage much more public than NPR.
The crunch he got in this morning was only witnessed(?) (audited?) by a bunch of centrists and moderates, and perhaps a few liberals and progressives. That’s to the good, but for the rest of the day and most of the next week, he’ll be out there seconding and concuring with the scaremongers to a much large audience.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:24 pmIf Steele is a lawyer like he says he is, I wouldn’t want him representing me in court. An opposing lawyer would chew him up. He’s as clueless as ol’ Gil Gunderson was when he represented Homer on the Simpsons.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:30 pmIf “government is the problem” as Ronny Raygun said, and the village idiots cheered, then why the hell is the government still running the DoD, FBI, NSA, Federal Reserve, SS and DoHS?
August 27th, 2009 at 12:39 pm@chiroptera toasterhead says:
I’m ROFLMAO! Are you kidding? Anyone with half a brain gave up on NRP quite a while ago now. I was a daily listener up until 2003, 2004, when it became overrun with dittohead news reportage.
On the rare occasion I have tuned in over the last year the longest I manage to listen before my ears threaten to bleed is about twenty minutes. Trapped in my car with no working CD player, on two occasions recently I made the mistake of tuning in to Tom Ashbrook’s “show.” Corporatism is alive and well and apparently flourishing on the taxpayer dime at NPR.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:44 pmAugust 27th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
There’e a reason Steele doesn’t hold an elected office anymore, the idiot couldn’t get elected dog catcher.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:24 pmNutwrench @42,
I think the problem is that they simply don’t know how to talk with somebody.
If there’s one thing that utterly exasperates me about this country it’s that we have a class of people who just sit in their protected little studios and say anything they want to, anything that comes into their heads. I hated Don Imus and Howard Stern and the infestation of ‘zoo crew’ drive radio long before the Right moved in. These people have only one mode: yak. They not only don’t know how to have an argument, they don’t even know how to have a conversation.
We have thugs like Hannity and Neal Boortz, who simply yell and browbeat, but we have folks like Bill O’Reilly and Michael Steele, who no doubt think themselves amiable apostle of sweet reason, but who don’t know how to actually have a conversation with even a friendly interlocutor. That requires actually listening to what a person says and adapting one’s argument to respond to their point. These folks sit there, wait for the other person to stop talking ao they can once again say what they want to say.
The mind-numbing part of this i that this orgy of yapping, and the privileged place it has in society, is that these people will never learn anything from anybody. Not even from their friends or their allies. And this is being thought of as an exalted state.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:35 pmNow that the raucous town halls have died down, the Republicans are facing a boomerang on the health care issue. More people are getting the facts from various sources including AARP and are now questioning why the Republicans are against health care. Steele is just an example of what happens when voters ask intelligent questions that Republicans cannot sidestep. There are many pro health care ads on cable stations. These ads are having an effect, even if it is small. I believe that if Obama gives a major speech on the issue there will be a lot of people questioning their Congressmen.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:57 pmNPR is the best.Year after year they get more bold. Thank you NPR. I have listened for 25 years,
August 27th, 2009 at 2:10 pmListening to this interview, it’s very clear that Michael Steele’s definition of “nuance” is wildly divergent from my own understanding of the term.
Steele really fights against his argument being labeled as “nuanced”. He really does think “nuance” is a bad thing.
Maybe he belongs as the chairman of the RNC, after all.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:11 pmLook – Steele was chosen by an evil cabal of leftwing communists who have been infiltrating evangelical churches and the great conservative South for generations.Their goal is a complete takeover of the US government by the government workers union and Mormon church. They carry guns to all these meetings to prevent the reds from absconding with their trailer parks and turning them into homeless shelters.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:30 pmThese are very dangerous people. You can tell because they don’t drive 15-year old chevy trucks with 40 bumper stickers on them.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
That interview was annoying. I disagre with Steele, but I clearly understood what he was saying. Medicare isn’t going anywhere, but more govt involvement can’t be supported by the right. Inskeep was the truly annoying one to argue over nuances or complications. We all support govt in some instances and not in others. What’s the big deal? This comes on top of last weeks on air complaints by Inskeep about Khaled Sheik Mohammed being waterboarded 183 times! He should’ve been drowned once for every person killed due to his plotting; about 3,000 times. Asking a bunch of questions doesn’t make you bold, answering them does.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:34 pmInskeep is an idiot liberal ass!
August 27th, 2009 at 2:53 pmAnd yet they want the American people to put them in charge of running it. I just don’t get it. It’s like hiring someone who despises baseball to manage the Mets.
I think it might be more apt to say that it’s like hiring someone who despises the Mets to manage the Mets, collect a big fat paycheck and gleefully run them into the ground.
Look, conservatives want to deregulate everything. The way to do this is to be in power. The way to get in power is to convince us that they’re doing it for our own good. So they gleefully go about sabotaging government (by appointing incompetent hack cronies, for example) and then pointing to the mess they’ve made, saying “See? Government doesn’t work! We’ll fix it by getting gov’t out of the way!” That’s why Medicare scares the hell out of them, because it’s a gov’t run program that actually works for people and one they actually like.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:57 pmThanks for posting this article. Great NPR interview! Steve Inskeep politely pointed out inconsistencies in Mr. Steele’s logic, and he gets accused of “doing a dance”?! The sad thing is, Steele is an intellectual giant compared to the likes of Glenn Beck.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:03 pmInskeep is daft. He was on a liberal tirade and went out of his way to be confused in order to make Steele seem confusing. I thought Mr. Steele’s logic was sound, his message was clear, and his position realistic.
This interview and many like it in the past are the reason I stopped donating money to NPR 10 years ago. They don’t deserve to be called “Public Radio”.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:07 pmdoug radar—- funny. NPR started changing under the Bush administration when they got all “fair and balanced” on everyone instead of just reporting the truth. NPR is STILL a much more trusted media source than most of the rest of the corporate media…
August 27th, 2009 at 3:23 pm****
“Micaele Steele is not a bright light within the party.”
**
he’s more of a dim bulb.
:|
August 27th, 2009 at 3:46 pmWhat the last 8 years proved is that the Right doesn’t care whether something works or not.
They’re like Bolsheviks: there are a bunch of true believers who have a guarantted explanation for everything. (Our plan was a disaster? It’s all part of the process that well eventually bring u a Golden Age! The principles cannot be questioned!) while the leaders care for nothing except power.
The thing the Righties don’t understand is that we liberals don’t want government control–we want stuff that works. IIf there’s a free market solution that actually works, we’re fine with it. Really. Computers, groceries, shoes, hair care products, bicycles, pr0n, bathroom fixtures-fine. But when it’s broken, we want it fixed.
But you on the right–you jut don’t care. Even though you use the argument, you’re far more interested in your loopy ideology than whether the system works. You’re more sacred that it WILL work, and that your free market absolutism will be discredited. Rather than see that, you’ll let thousands die, break the back of the economy, turn America into a second tier nation, and make your own lot worse.
In 1929, the Republican pro-business system went through an utter and complete disaster. Wealth was destroyed, and the system had to be saved. The President, a very smart and pragmatic engineer, started to work on a variety of measures to revive the economy.
Everything but help the ordinary suffering people. Why? Why that would be the dole. that would be socialism!
And they worked at it for three whole years. And things went from bad to worse.
And then FDR came in, and tried some socialism. And the free fall stopped. Things stopped getting worse.
The Republicans hated him for it, even though he saved their wealth along with everybody else’s ass. Because the republicans cared less about their country than about their ideology.
And we’re here again. We’re in the midst of a horrible crisis. It has to be fixed. But you don’t want it fixed if it damages your faith–you won’t even let us try it–you won’t even let people have the option to try it.
Look. WE’re going to give this a try. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll try to improve it. And if it isn’t fixable, we’ll drop it and try something else.
That’s called governance. It’s called pragmatism.
But we’ve had it with you Marxists and your ideological purity and your Lysenkoist anti-science and your willingness to let the damn country collapse as long as the Party still adhered to proper political principles.
Your kind nearly ruined America in the 30’s, Did ruin Rusia, but, by God, you’re not going to get to do it again.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:02 pmNPR is different depending on your local show. Here in DC, I am quite pleased with it. I’m not sure what ruler you are using to declare too conservative. Compared to what? Say what you want about Inskeep, the reason this is such a great story is because through very gentle and fair prodding Steele had to lift his skirt and shriek. Yeah, it wasn’t that hard to get him to do that, but it hasn’t been done before. Everything on cable is laughable garbage and most of radio is a blight on the human intellect.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:35 pmNPR is NOT perfect, but it is head and shoulders above what is out there.
radar_doug says:
No Steele is daft and there WAS no logic in what he said. The man is demented. For instance why in the world would he act like being nuanced and perfectly clear are mutally exclusive. They only would be if you were talking to morons so simpleminded that they cant understand anything except black an white Manichean thinking defined by false dichotomies.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:29 pmLet’s face it, folks.Steele is confused and overwhelmed just getting out of bed in the morning. What confuses and overwhelms me is that anyone would want his opinion on anything.
August 27th, 2009 at 7:09 pmMichael Steele is to Barack Obama as Sarah Palin is to Hillary Clinton.
“The Shadow cannot create; it can only mar.”
August 28th, 2009 at 1:34 amYesterday morning I was driving down the highway, screaming “Liar! LIAR!!” at Steele. Today it was Armey. I have got to stop listening to NPR in the morning…
August 28th, 2009 at 8:49 amAnother dirty secret, the healthcare bill was reviewed by the non-partisan group, Congressional review serice, and they stated that there is NO LANGUAGE IN THIS BILL THAT EXCLUDES ILLEGAL ALIENS, so therefore by DEFAULT, Illegals will have to be subsidized by American familes. So these idiots that are holding town hall meetings and saying illegals are not covered in this bill are lying to the American people
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