If I read you right, you’re defending his choice to abdicate his leadership to those who would push for retaliation.

No, Jim, you aren’t reading me right. (This isn’t surprising as I’m seldom read correctly here.)

Steele doesn’t see himself as abidicating any leadership. He sees his proper role as RNC head to help the state parties do what they wish to do regarding any particular candidate.

What I am saying is I see no reason to argue with his position on what is proper for RNC leader.

In any event, as I said before, even if Steele were actively supporting retaliation against these three senators you would have no cause to go so far as to say “as far as Steele’s concerned, there’s no longer any room in the GOP for those who disagree with him.”

As for agreeing to disagree, that’s fine by me. But you could have taken this attitude before you accused me of having a “most amazing capacity to argue that what someone said is not what someone said.”

He might even be able to succeed by alienating these senators enough that they switch to the Democratic Party even before the next election.

It is always nice to see somone with the ambition and dedication to really make a difference out there.

Once again, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Dave, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You have the most amazing capacity to argue that what someone said is not what someone said.

It is with considerable bemusement that I read this accusation, Jim, as saying I said something other than what I said has been done to me more times on this blog than I can count.

I quoted from Steele more extensively than did you, so I don’t see how you feel you have the right to accuse me of saying Steele said something other than what he said.

Saying he is open to whatever the state Republican Parties wish to do vis-a-vis Senators Collin, Snowe, and Specter is decidedly not the same as saying “there’s no longer any room in the GOP for those who disagree with him.” It takes some gumption on your part to put words into Steele’s mouth and then accuse me of misrepresenting him when I attempt to correct the record.

As for your comparisons of Steele with Reagan, well Reagan was President. Steele is the head of the RNC. There is a big difference in those positions.

There is also a big difference between Weicker’s ineffective disagreement with Reagan and the GOP majority back in the 80′s and Collin, Snowe, and Specter making a possible a hugely expensive spending bill that directly contradicts the governmental and economic principles the GOP wants to stand for. You are comparing apples and pineapples.

If Steele came out and lead the charge to retaliate against these three senators, it wouldn’t mean he thinks there is no room in the GOP for anyone who disagrees with him on anything whatsoever — which is what you accused him of. It would only mean he thought these three senators deserved punishment for one particular action.

However, it isn’t clear from what he told Cavuto that he thinks “retaliation is a swell idea”; it is only clear that he will take his lead from the state parties on such retaliation as on other matters. Steele said,

My responsibility is to follow the lead of the state parties, to get their advice, what their intent is… we’ll follow their lead. It’s just like anything — when the state party says ‘we’re going to endorse a candidate and support a candidate,’ the RNC’s behind them. When the state party says ‘we have a problem with that candidate,’ so does the RNC.

You, as a gay activist, had a knee-jerk reaction to Steele’s civil unions comments. We’d get along better if you didn’t allow your antipathy to conservative politics get the better of you.

When Steele was asked about those who voted for Obama’s stimulus package, he had a choice on how to respond. He could have responded with what he said just a few weeks ago, about the GOP being a big tent and the need to allow for people in the big tent to disagree.

You know, the kind of thing that Reagan often said when he was asked about Connecticut Sen. Lowell Weicker. He often pointed out that the GOP was like a big family, that yes, people in a big family don’t always agree and often bicker, but in the end it’s still a family. The GOP, he often pointed out, was big enough and confident enough for these honest differences to be aired. That reaction was part and parcel of Reagan’s dictum of never speaking ill of another Republican.

You see, Steele could have been Reaganesque. He could have said something like that, or similar to what he said merely a few weeks ago.

But no, the Republican Party’s official National Leader held out the possibility — indeed the endorsement — of sanctioning those three Senators who voted on the stimulus package. Yes, he said that he’d that he’d “talk to the said parties about” it. But oh yes baby, he was definitely open to it.

When the National Leader of the Republican Party is willing to abdicate his leadership to speak so enthusiastically about retaliation rather than emulating Reagan — who all Republicans profess to revere — well, to pretend that he doesn’t think that retaliation is a swell idea is beyond absurd.

You mean like the guy who couldn’t use Turbo Tax correctly is now Secretary of the Treasury? Couldn’t resist.

I must say though that I’m disappointed by Steele’s remarks. I expected him to be a social con but these comments do make me suspicious about how “open” he really is when it comes to Republicans who do not agree with his faction of the party on gay rights issues.

It’s called gay marriage. And we need it now. And we will accept nothing less.

So the guy who couldn’t pass the bar exam is an authority on contract law?