Via Think Progress:
This morning on CBS’s Early Show, RNC Chairman Michael Steele strongly endorsed Rush Limbaugh’s reaction to Sen. Arlen Specter’s (PA) decision to leave the Republican party. Limbaugh had responded to Specter’s departure by calling him “dead weight” and claiming that it said “nothing about the state of the GOP.” Steele said that he agreed with Limbaugh. Ask why he wasn’t phased by Specter’s departure, Steele cited Specter’s “debilitating” vote in favor of President Obama’s economic recovery package. “It went against core principles. … I’m not weeping here. I’m sorry,” Steele remarked.
Dead weight? Dead weight???
I guess it’s okay since seconds later he threw in… “There’s room for everybody who wants to be a part of a party that believes, first and foremost, in the value of the individual to make decisions that empower him or herself.”
Anybody buying that?
Then there’s the NPR interview:
By the way, is the tent still big enough to accommodate pro-choice Republicans?
Yeah, sure, why not? Look, I’m not going to stand at the door with a little checklist and say, well, you can be a Republican and you can’t. I welcome everyone to this party. But understand, it’s like — you know, when I come to your house for dinner, all right, and I sit down at your table, what do you think of me when I look at your wife or look at you and go, “You know, this is a nice meal but I would have preferred chicken. And if you could take this plate off, I think I’d like a different type of china.” It is what you serve.
Hmm… where have I heard words similar to these before? Oh yeah… here. (comments 21 and 22)