Steele Blames 2008 on The Media’s Love for Obama’s Blackness

Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:30 pm

RNC Chair Michael Steele was guest hosting Bill Bennett’s radio show today where we found out that the era of Republicans not looking backwards lasted for two days. Steele blamed the GOP’s 2008 defeat on the media, who fell in love with Obama because he is black. Is Steele jealous because the media fell in love with the “wrong black man?”

Here is the audio from Think Progress:

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Steele said, “The problem that we have with this president is that we don’t know [Obama]. He was not vetted, folks. … He was not vetted, because the press fell in love with the black man running for the office. “Oh gee, wouldn’t it be neat to do that? Gee, wouldn’t it make all of our liberal guilt just go away? We can continue to ride around in our limousines and feel so lucky to live in an America with a black president.” Okay that’s wonderful, great scenario, nice backdrop. But what does he stand for? What does he believe? … So we don’t know. We just don’t know.”

Steele went back to the old Republican well of woe that the media did not dissect the relationship between Rev. Wright and Barack Obama. Steele said that Obama learned at Wright’s knee. Do we really have to go through this again? The 2008 campaign is over. The idea that the media did not focus enough on Obama and Wright is laughable. The media spent weeks focusing on nothing but Rev. Wright.

I know refighting the 2008 presidential campaign makes Republicans feel better, but if this is new era of a Republican comeback, as Steele promised earlier this week, it looks a lot like the old era of failure. Republicans didn’t lose because the media didn’t properly vet Obama. One of the reasons that they lost was that McCain picked a running mate, which his campaign didn’t bother to properly vet. So I think that the GOP needs to be careful when they complain about vetting.

There are more systemic reasons why the Republicans lost in 2006, and 2008. They were/are a party living in the past. They offered no serious alternative to Obama. They also have been running terrible campaigns all over the country, are alienating voters, and have no message.

Steele is using the media as an excuse, to hide deeper issues. I have a hunch that Steele is jealous of Obama. It might not be that the media fell in love with a black man, but that in his view, the media fell in love with the wrong black man. I think that Steele would get better coverage if he would stop putting his foot in his mouth.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association