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Steele: 'I Wasn't Chairman Of The Party' During Ensign Scandal (VIDEO)
Rachel Slajda | January 14, 2010, 2:38PM
RNC Chairman Michael Steele
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Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, in an interview this week with the Las Vegas Sun's Jon Ralston, claimed he wasn't chairman when the Ensign affair took place.
In the interview, Ralston describes Sen. John Ensign's (R-NV) affair, asking what Steele would do if a Democrat had done the same thing.
"If you were chairman of the Republican party and a Democratic senator had an affair with a staffer, had his parents pay her off, fired both her and her husband who worked for him then tried to get the husband a job, you'd be outraged, wouldn't you?" Ralston said.
"I don't know. Who is the individual you're talking about?" Steele responded.
"The individual happens to be John Ensign," Ralston said, then called Steele "Mr. Double Standard" for not saying anything about Ensign.
"I wasn't chairman of the party when all that took place, so I had no opinion on it," Steele said.
"What are you talking about? It took place last year!" Ralston said.
"I wasn't chairman of the party," Steele said again.
Steele isn't necessarily lying. The actual events of Ensign's scandal -- the affair, the payoff, his mistress' husband's lobbying gig -- happened in 2007 and 2008, before Steele took the helm of the RNC.
But the affair was revealed in summer of 2009, months after Steele won the chairmanship. (See TPMmuckraker's handy timeline of the Ensign affair.)
Watch:
The interview sounds a lot like one last week, when Steele claimed he wrote his new book before he was a chairman -- even though most of the book couldn't have been written before 2009.
(H/T Think Progress)
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texscubarat
January 14, 2010 2:59 PM
It is so hard to track your thoughts and what you said if you are always disingenuous. He will purposely ignore any illicit activity within his own party, but will sound the bells at the teeniest of issues with the Dems. Best is, he thinks no one is the wiser...
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hychka
January 14, 2010 3:00 PM
Michael has trouble working with a calendar. I've heard it said that he doesn't know the time of day, too.
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Nowukkers
January 14, 2010 5:40 PM in reply to hychka
Wouldn't know shit from clay if it were canned and labelled - in fact wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. Hard to not slap this disingenuous moron silly.
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Sambam
January 14, 2010 3:31 PM
Wow - just when you thought these national Republican "leaders" can't get any more disingenuous or self-contradictory, they seem to plumb new lows!
It's immaterial whether or not he was Chairman of the Party. What does he mean he didn't have an opinion? Does this mean he's shut up and stop spouting off his opinions once he's no longer chairman of the Republican Party (and joins his true home, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party)?
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CT Voter
January 14, 2010 4:05 PM
This isn't all that surprising, given the standard line of unelected Republicans about no terror attacks during the Bush Administration.
What is new, of course, is a reporter actually pushing back on the lies.
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jeffgee
January 14, 2010 4:14 PM
Speaking of calendars, now that W is livin' large on his speakin' engagements, the Bushism of the Day calendars can be replaced by the Steele-ism of the Day. Fun stuff.
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Schmed- ley
January 14, 2010 4:32 PM
Michael Steele -- the illustration in the dictionary for the listing of Lame.
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Seeryer
January 14, 2010 5:09 PM
IF Michael Steele can become chairman of the RNC is there any doubt that Sarah Palin will be the GOP candidate in 2012? Its almost like Republicans want to support people that any normal person could see is a total fraud. Think about it. McCain was the only plausible candidate they had in '08 and most Republicans can't stand McCain. Bizzaro world indeed.
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chimpale
January 14, 2010 5:11 PM
Oh, for the love of god, could somebody buy this jackass a calendar?
And show him how to use it?
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chimpale
January 14, 2010 5:18 PM
I guess it makes sense. All definitions are flexible to Republicans. "Day" can mean "night". "True" can mean "false". So, I guess chronology is purely subjective to them, as well. "Today" can mean either "yesterday" or "tomorrow", or both simultaneously. Or, whatever the hell they feel like it should be.
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