Embattled RNC chairman Michael Steele may well have been saved by the calendar. On any other day, a leaked video showing him telling funders that Afghanistan is a hopeless war, launched not by George W. Bush but by President Obama could easily have cost him his job. As luck would have it, though, the footage surfaced on a Friday before a holiday weekend with many of Washington’s biggest newsmakers out of town or unavailable for comment. But with Republicans and conservative operatives calling for his head, Steele must be wondering whether he’ll survive beyond the long weekend.
The news broke unexpectedly this morning. “[T]his was a war of Obama’s choosing,” Steele was heard saying. “This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”
[I]t was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.
Those statements didn’t just anger Democrats, who piled on the gaffe-prone chairman— it turned heads in the GOP as well. Afghanistan hawks were livid, and long-time Steele foes smelled blood. Top operatives believed the video could be Steele’s Waterloo, and began circulating his own past statements to bring to light just how far afield he’d strayed from standard GOP doctrine in the speech.
Others went on the record. Conservative mainstay Bill Kristol called on Steele to resign. So did Erick Erickson. So, too, did Katon Dawson, the controversial former South Carolina GOP chair who lost to Steele in the RNC chairman’s race last year.
The howls from within his own ranks sent Steele into damage control mode. First his spokesman issued a pseudo-retraction, which didn’t address the claims Steele made about the potential for success in Afghanistan, or Obama’s role in the war.
Steele supporters then circulated yet more old statements, in an attempt to re-establish his record as an Afghanistan hawk. But that just yielded more head scratching. Of course Steele’s an Afghanistan hawk… so why did he say what he said?
Finally, Steele released a full statement of his own, but once again declined to retract or explain the words he uttered on tape.
That brings us up to speed, but it doesn’t get Steele out of the doghouse. Providing him additional cover are practical mattes: It’s unclear who’d want to head the RNC, or whether RNC members would be willing to go through the process of selecting a new one so close to the election. All day, leading Republican Afghanistan hawks and Steele critics were unavailable for comment. But they won’t be for long. This weekend, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will all appear on Sunday morning shows where they’ll almost certainly be asked for their reaction to the row. Let’s see if they keep the gloves on.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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