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Michael Steele's Inner Black Man: Gets Into Rand Paul Over Civil Rights Comments

By Jam Donaldson on May 25th 2010 10:49AM

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Rand Paul

As soon as Rand Paul opened his mouth last week and inserted his foot with his comments on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, I immediately wondered how RNC Chairman Michael Steele was going to two-step his way around this one. Paul, endorsed by the Tea Party, has caused non-stop controversy since winning the Republican primary in Kentucky with his odd comments on everything from integration to the BP oil disaster.After 48 hours of silence, the RNC's first African American chairman appeared Sunday on Fox News and also ABC's 'This Week' to repudiate Paul's disturbing comments and express his strong disapproval of the Republican senatorial candidate's recent statements.

Watching him was pretty sad. If Steele wasn't such a doofus, I'd almost feel sorry for him. It's practically his job to promote and support Republican candidates in their various races, no matter what kind of wing nuts they are.

One must give him credit (wow, that was hard to say), however, because Steele actually offered some of the most hard-core disapproval of Paul's libertarian positions to date from within the Republican Party. Unlike his GOP buddies who have avoided this controversy like the plague, Steele said he was "not comfortable" with Paul's position on the Civil Rights Act -- which he called "misplaced in these times" -- and cautioned that if he were to be elected, the Tea Party–backed candidate would have to temper his views accordingly:

"He had a philosophical difference, as many members who come to Congress have a different philosophies," Steele said. "But when you get here, what you do and how you execute the job is what matters."

On Paul's comments on federal civil rights legislation, Steele adamantly disagreed again:

"I don't think it's where the country is right now. The country litigated the issue of separate but equal, the country litigated the rights of minority people in this country to access the enterprise, free enterprise system, and accommodation and all of that. And that was crystallized in the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of '64. And I think that the party stands very firmly behind its efforts then as we do now, to press forward on new civil rights issues. ... But I think in this case, Rand Paul's philosophy got in the way of reality."

In a separate appearance Steele said:

"I think it's important to understand that Rand Paul has clarified his statement and reiterated his support for...pushing civil rights forward, as opposed to going backwards. Any attempt to look backwards is not in the best interest of our country certainly and certainly not in the best interest of the party."

Dangit, Steele, you almost had me ... until the end.


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