Steele is remarkable on so many levels. How anyone can say what he says and be so inept yet still keep his job - how is this possible, even in the Republican party?

Michael Steele continues to go beyond cutting edge.

Steele, in the Green Room:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30835791@N07/3325139620/in/set-72157614241935013/

Uncle Tom popped in my mind when I read Steele's boot licking snicker, but maybe that's just me.

More to the point, Steele played politics when he had a Black audience. On the radio he was back to his old Republican self.

I've heard Steele on the radio.
He laughs uncomfortably at EVERYTHING.
He's very nervous. It's a coping mechanism.

He simply didn't shut it off and he's hard pressed to chastise callers. The ratings are low enough.

Not much to see here.

I'll say also, to his credit, Steele generally doesn't hang up on liberals which is more than I can say for any other conservative talk show host. It makes me wonder why they still give him a mike. It's dangerous giving the opposing view any airtime.

Very hard for me to think of Steele as black, Republican, male, Catholic, American . . . anything at all in particular.

He's just the ultimate empty suit.

Steele will say anything to please whatever audience he's speaking to. He's truly a philosophical blank slate. Or whore, if you prefer.

Sometimes I actually feel sort of sorry for him. He's an incompetent ass, but he doesn't strike me as having the pure, undiluted malevolence of a Dick Cheney or Tom DeLay.

Michael Steele, Spiro Agnew -- Maryland, my Maryland!

I agree with bluestatedon. Steele's gaffes always seem to come when someone else says something offensive (or, in the case of the Hughley/Rush incident, offensive to certain groups), and his instinctual need to pander and avoid confrontation causes him to agree with the person even if it doesn't make sense, even if it will offend people, even if it completely contradicts something he said earlier. The pattern is clear all the way back to his '06 senate race, when he slammed Bush off the record to a reporter.

And yes, the correct response is pathos. He's not evil, and even if he were, he's clearly too incompetent to accomplish anything. So just keep putting the guy in front of a microphone and pass the popcorn.

I wonder if caller knew Steele was black. Steele is not the regular on a right wing radio show.

I believe the term was coined by David Ehrenstein of LA Times, a guy who is about as black as Obama.

I don't know what the word "Negro" is doing in that phrase. One could call Bush the Magic Cowboy and it wouldn't be much offensive. So theoretically, if the word "Negro" conjures up an image that is consistently homogeneous across listeners, it could have value as a descriptive term.

But I don't know why the word would denote some consistent referent group. To use it as if it does is kind of the (popular) definition of "racism." (A concept I've never fully understood myself, looking instead for ill intent).

Black people do use "negro" occasionally, usually in a joking manner. But here, the word seems to be allowing people who have vague, negative feelings about a race of people to use a (in modern usage) slur, and have fun thinking they are getting away with it.

IOW, you know it when you see it.

hope this helps....

Obama the 'Magic Negro'

The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.
By David Ehrenstein,

The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .

He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.

As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."

whole thing here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story

Bluestatedon and Zorro,
Steele explained to us that he doesn't make gaffes. Never, ever, never. Everything he says is part of a cunning plan. If it looks like a gaffe, it's because his lightning mind is so far ahead of us that we can't see where he's going. If where he's going is over a cliff, it's because he meant to go over that cliff. Since everything he does is carefully planned and intentional, we should never feel sorry for him. We should, instead, stand in awe of his monumental arrogance and stupidity.