Nobody will believe it on Capitol Hill, but the fact that someone did something unfair to you doesn’t make it right for you to do the same thing to them. Is it possible all of none of our elected leaders were taught that two wrongs don’t make a right?
Thus we have the spectacle of Michael Steele, the increasingly embarrassing chair of the GOP, telling NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press” that Harry Reid should resign as Senate leader. Why? Because the Democrats pressured Republican Trent Lott to resign as Majority Leader in 2002 for another “gotcha!” gaffe. Even though Steele believes what happened to Lott was unfair, his unethical reasoning brings him to the conclusion that it is right for the Republicans to insist that Reid be treated just as unfairly…more unfairly, in truth. You got our Majority Leader for sticking his foot in his mouth, so we get yours.
Jefferson and Madison must be so proud.
Lott, you may recall, got in trouble for praising the ancient former Dixiecrat Senator Strom Thurmond on his one- hundredth birthday, telling the frail old man—on C-Span— that “when Strom Thurmond ran for president, [Lott’s state of Mississippi] voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either.” Cutting Lott no slack at all for kindness and hyperbole in flattery of an elderly colleague on his birthday (I’m sure they wanted him to have said, “Happy birthday Strom, you racist old relic; the sooner you’re dragged off to Hell, the better we’ll all be!”), Democrats insisted that what Lott was really saying is that if Strom had been elected we wouldn’t have all these annoying civil rights laws. Most of the media (of course) helped the onslaught, and Lott had to resign.
Yes, it was unfair. Lott’s statement was, however, truly inept: he obviously wouldn’t have gone overboard praising Thurmond if he thought it would be interpreted as it was, but it didn’t speak well for his intellect that he couldn’t anticipate the apparent implications of his phrasing.
Reid, as I just posted, was not similarly insensitive. While Lott’s blunder was in public and stunningly stupid, what Reid said was in private conversation and only politically incorrect. The worst description of Reid’s words that Steele could come up with was “anachronistic.” We’re forcing out public servants for anachronisms now, as Trent Lott’s revenge?
As he did when he used Obama’s surprise Nobel Peace Prize to attack the President, as if Obama had awarded the honor to himself, Steele continues to display the ethical sophistication of 6th Grade playground bully. He isn’t merely making the Republicans look mean and petty; he’s actively degrading the dignity and civility of the American politics in general.
Ethics Alarms 
Every time Michael Steele opens his mouth, his foot flies in it.
Must be a frustrating way to live, not to mention all the dental bills.
I agreed with you that Harry Reid did nothing substantially wrong, and now I’ll submit that Steele just made him look better by comparison, rather than worse as he intended.
I praised Steele’s election to the RNC post, but he has botched it so badly that only his mother could love the work he has done there. I really expected much more from him, but he simply cannot seem to grasp reality, even with one hand.
Gotcha politics — what a great way to run a country!
The Republicans seem determined to embarrass themselves on this, not just Steele. Handed a perfect example of why political correctness is both misleading and wrong (as so many of them have been arguing for years), they are calling for strict enforcement of it, seeking to reinforce a standard they have claimed to deplore.
The honor of Trent Lott isn’t worth it.
Good for George Will, who is nothing if not an adult, for brushing aside Reid’s comments as legitimate political calculus.
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