<http://www.afro.com/>
Steele’s Apology to Limbaugh Troubles Many Blacks
*By Dorothy Rowley
AFRO Staff Writer*
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele (Photo /
whorunsgov.com <http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Michael_Steele>)
(March 7, 2009) -- Reactions have been mixed regarding GOP leader Michael
Steele’s apology earlier this week after calling conservative radio
commentator Rush Limbaugh an “entertainer.” But for many African Americans,
his apology has been troubling.
Steele, the newly-installed chair of the Republican National Committee and
the first African American to hold the post, made the comment March 2 during
an on-air interview with CNN late-night host D. L. Hughley.
The former Maryland lieutenant governor, who also said Limbaugh can be
“incendiary,” fell into an immediate backlash of Republican criticism and
later backtracked with an apology.
He said he’d reached out to Limbaugh to let him know that no offense was
meant.
Steele also vigorously denied Hughley’s assertion during the interview that
the apology made Limbaugh the “defacto leader” of the Republican Party.
“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush
Limbaugh,” Steele said. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was
no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
Nevertheless, to the dismay and disgust of many African Americans, Steele
also made similar apologetic comments on other national shows like NBC’s
“Today.”
The general consensus among callers tuned in to the “Tom Joyner Morning
Show,” a widely popular Black radio talk and music program, was that Steele,
having apologized to a conservative firebrand as Rush Limbaugh, had “made a
fool of himself,” as one caller put it.
On the same Joyner show where he does a weekly commentary, the Rev. Al
Sharpton said what African Americans should really watch for is how the
Republican Party treats and supports Steele, its leader. After all, said
Sharpton, Republicans have been saying they want to do more outreach to
Blacks and other communities of color, so how they treat Steele will be very
“telling.”
Local Black leaders such as Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, president of the
Baltimore City NAACP, agreed; he, too, was not very understanding of Steele.
Cheatham, who freely admits he doesn’t particularly care for Steele or his
politics, said emphatically that no apology to Limbaugh by Steele was in
order.
“I think anytime you tell the truth, you don’t need to apologize unless it’s
taken out of context, or if someone doesn’t hear the full explanation,”
Cheatham told the AFRO. “But I guess that what we’re hearing is that the
Republican Party told him that he has to apologize because Rush Limbaugh has
too much power.”
Cheatham also noted that Steele’s controversial slip of the tongue about
Limbaugh marked the second time in a week that he’d made a public blunder.
The other foul-up, said Cheatham, involved what he and others considered
negative comments made by Steele about students at Baltimore’s Frederick
Douglass Sr. High School.
In 2006, Steele visited Douglass in Baltimore, holding it up as an example
of the failures of urban education. He again said Douglass isn't doing its
job during his interview with Hughley on CNN.
Cheatham and the head of Baltimore’s public schools, Dr. Andres Alonso, have
demanded that Steele issue an apology and retraction for what Cheatham
called Steele’s “misguided” statements which he said “downplay the hard work
of parents and teachers . . . and failed to make mention of our progress.”
"It is inappropriate to use our children to score political points,” added
C.D. Witherspoon, president of Baltimore’s African American Democratic Club.
“They [students] are not tallies on a score card, but rather living,
breathing human beings with feelings and emotions."
Meanwhile, Ron Walters, a University of Maryland political analyst, said
Steele had no choice but to apologize. If he hadn’t, it would certainly have
cost him his credibility in the Republican Party, Walters said.
Walters added that Steele’s comments on Hughley’s show were actually about
whether Rush Limbaugh was the power of the Republican Party.
“But theoretically, Limbaugh has something to do with how successful Steele
is going to be, so he had to apologize – it wasn’t a question of what
somebody thinks,” said Walters.
>From the start of the Obama presidency, Limbaugh and other talk show hosts
such as Sean Hannity and Mark Levin have hammered away at Democrats, with
Limbaugh producing a firestorm of criticism after saying he hopes the
administration fails. He also claimed this week (in light of a reported feud
with the White House) that the Obama administration appeared to be attacking
him because “they need a demon to distract and divert them from what their
agenda is.”
Meanwhile, Black Republicans such as Ada Fisher, a member of the Republican
National Committee from North Carolina, called on Steele to resign. Fisher,
appearing Thursday on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” said Steele had become a
distraction and that the Limbaugh incident was “taking the party off
message.”
For Steele, the Limbaugh flap has stirred up old conflict of interest
charges and his leadership of the Republican National Committee. According
to reports, Steele fired almost the entire staff when he came on board as
chairman and has no chief of staff or communications director.
Will he resign?
Said Steele on another, more moderate conservative talk show hosted by
former Education Secretary William Bennett: “Not me…not happening…no how.”
--
"I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of
control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my
worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." ~Marilyn Monroe
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