Had Michael Steele forcefully criticized Rand Paul's views on the Civil Rights Act prior to other leading Republicans, he might have diminished the sense among black Democrats that his presence in the Republican Party is meant to do little more than exonerate the GOP from charges of racism. Instead, Steele waited until most of the leadership had already distanced themselves from Paul's statements, and then he went on the Sunday shows armed with mild criticisms.
On Fox News Sunday, he said, "I think in this case, Rand Paul's philosophy got in the way of reality."
But he also told Jake Tapper that "I can’t condemn a person’s view. That’s like, you know, you believe something and I’m going to say, well, you know, I’m going to condemn your view of it."
Another perspective might be that as the head of the Republican National Committee, it's Steele's job to "condemn people's views."
It would obviously be awkward for any party chair to go after someone in his own party, but Paul's remarks were so extreme that it would have been a simple matter for Steele to rebuke him. Doing so would have made it clear to conservative-leaning black voters that the GOP isn't interested in fighting over whether the federal government was right to end segregation, and that he himself isn't going to be silent when people in the party express racially insensitive views. Now it looks like Steele had to wait for permission from other people in the party in order to state the obvious. It was a low-hanging pitch, and Steele waited before the ball was in the glove before he even swung the bat.
-- A. Serwer
