To say that Michael Steele's short tenure as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee has been something of a disaster would be putting it mildly. But that is all about to change, because Steele is set to unilaterally announce that the era of the GOP's flailing and failure is now officially over:
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele will tell GOP state leaders Tuesday that they must embrace conservative principles, focus their efforts on rebuilding the party and highlight the policy differences between Republican ideals and President Obama's agenda.
"The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over," Steele will say in a speech to the RNC's 2009 State Chairmen's Meeting, according to excerpts obtained by CNN. "It is done. We have turned the page, we have turned the corner. No more looking in the review mirror. From this point forward, we will focus all of our energies on winning the future."
Frankly, I wasn't even aware that the GOP had been apoligizing for its mistakes. When did that start? I was aware that seemingly every other week Steele himself was being forced to apologize for his blunders, so maybe what he means is that, in this brave new GOP future, he's not going to be apologizing any more.
More importantly, Steele won't have to apologize ever again because "Republicans are [now] turning a corner in three important ways":
First, the Republican Party will be forward-looking – it is time to stop looking backward. Republicans have spent ample time re-examining the past. It has been a healthy and necessary task. But I believe it is now time for Republicans to focus all of our energies on winning the future by emerging as the party of new ideas. Republicans are emerging once again with the energy, the focus, and the determination to turn our timeless principles into new solutions for the future.
And the reason the Republicans will no longer be looking backwards is, Steele explains, because that is what Ronald Reagan would have done:
The Republican Party has turned a corner, and as we move forward Republicans should take a lesson from Ronald Reagan. Again, we’re not looking back – if President Reagan were here today he would have no patience for Americans who looked backward. Ronald Reagan always believed Republicans should apply our conservative principles to current and future challenges facing America. For Reagan’s conservatism to take root in the next generation we must offer genuine solutions that are relevant to this age.
So the GOP is going to stop looking back so that it can focus on "winning the future by emerging as the party of new ideas" ... and it is going to do that by taking lessons from Ronald Reagan, who left office twenty years ago and died in 2004?
Huh?
