It's pretty obvious Michael doesn't know what the word means.

And he's betting on the Joe the Plumbers in "his" Party not knowing either.

That man purely loves the sound of his own voice.

By the way, Michael, did you get a note from Boss Limbaugh permitting you to speak? And do you think he'll let you have the use of your balls just for the weekend?

Sheesh. Here's an excerpt of then-Judge David Souter's Supreme Court nomination opening statement:

The first lesson, simple as it is, is that whatever court we're in, whatever we are doing, at the end of our task some human being is going to be affected. Some human life is going to be changed by what we do. And so we had better use every power of our minds and our hearts and our beings to get those rulings right.

And Justice Breyer at his SCOTUS confirmation hearing:

Law requires both a heart and a head. If you don't have a heart, it becomes a sterile set of rules removed from human problems, and it won't help. If you don't have a head, there's the risk that in trying to decide a particular person's problem in a case that may look fine for that person, you cause trouble for a lot of other people, making their lives yet worse.

All Barack Obama is saying is that the Supreme Court is, to quote Ted Kennedy, "not merely a tribunal for the intellectual resolution of lawsuits." We don't want Justices who are indifferent to the human consequences of their views, and view being on the Supreme Court as nothing more than what Robert Bork described as an "intellectual feast." Indifference is what led to that abomination that is Plessy. Indifference is what lead to that shameful decision that is Bowers. Indifference is what led to that manifest injustice that allowed Joshua DeShaney, victim of child abuse left profoundly retarded at the hands of his father, to have no recourse to sue Wisconsin officials who knew the four-year-old was in danger and yet did essentially nothing.

Steele talks like a white person who's never met a black person but is trying to talk the way he thinks black people talk because he wants to show his white friends how down he is with the crew.

Idjit!

Watch yourself, Steele's gonna empathize yer ass.

Maybe he feels empathy with other asses?

I still think he had a secret conversion to liberalism in 2008 and is deliberately trying to destroy the Republican party from the inside.

No one can be that clueless, can they?

Thanks Jen. You helped me figure it out. He wants people to have empathy for him because he is an ass.

Is it me, or does Steele seem like Fresh Prince of Bel Air's Carlton Banks, all grown up?

It's a moment of honest clarity for the Republican platform. They're actually saying "We don't want people in public office who actually care about individuals." This has been unstated policy, it's nice of them to put on the record.

Mr. Steele, thanks for articulating the perfect slogan for the re-branded GOP:

"Empathize right on your behind!"

Nothing somes up Republican party values better than that. Crank out the bumper stickers!