Michael Steele is exactly the sort of Republican of which conservatives have grown exhausted and to which they attribute their movement's reversals of fortune.

While making an appearance on CNN earlier this month, Michael Steele adamantly rejected the proposition that Rush Limbaugh is "the de facto head of the Republican Party," informing the audience and his interlocutors that Limbaugh is but "an entertainer" whose material is not infrequently "incendiary" and "ugly."  In truth, the chairman of the Republican National Committee insists, it is he who is his party's head.

Within no time, talk-radio's premier titan shared on over 650 stations with over 20 million listeners the clip of Steele's remarks, followed by his own indignant reply, transforming almost overnight but one more (sorry) Republican effort at "outreach" into a national brouhaha between those two figures most closely associated with the GOP.

Steele came off looking badly in both personal and professional respects.  Considering that Limbaugh had spoken in his defense in the past, he now appeared an ingrate, a person who would stab even his friends in the back in order to curry favor with the left-wing establishment.  Yet he also seemed to reveal himself as precisely the sort of moderate or liberal Republican with whom the base of his party has grown impatient and disgusted. 

Damage control was imperative. 

Immediately, Steele issued an apology to Limbaugh in which he "clarified" his comments.  Then, with the assistance of several right-leaning commentators, including Sean Hannnity and Michael Medved, he determinedly promoted the idea that his words had been deliberately lifted out of context and distorted by the Obama administration and the Democrats so as to create in the popular imagination the impression that the Republican Party was in disarray. 

Apparently, this line succeeded, for the heat on Steele has subsided.  But what must not be lost on all remotely intellectually honest Republicans and conservatives is that this is a less than fully truthful account of the situation.

That the Democrats have an invested interest in generating discord among the Right is undeniable, and it is equally obvious that they exploited and exacerbated the Steele/Limbaugh affair with an eye toward preserving and enhancing their own power. But neither Barack Obama nor any other Democrat stuffed Steele's words into his mouth.

At the first opportunity, Steele distanced himself and the party of which he is now the standard bearer from the entire person, not some of the views, of the one individual who, like it or not, has exerted an immeasurable influence over the last two decades in promoting the GOP and Republican politicians like Steele himself.  This distinction is critical: for Steele to disagree with Limbaugh over some issues is entirely appropriate, but for him to marginalize, in front of a panel and audience already strongly disposed to think the worst of Limbaugh, as nothing more nor less than an entertainer who is "incendiary" and "ugly," is at once stupid and offensive.

Steele strikes me as a fundamentally decent man, but this latest episode, I'm afraid, reveals that he is hardly the rock-ribbed conservative that he is usually promoted to be. In light of his remarks, of the ease with which he fell into the trap laid for him by his leftist opponents, his 180-degree about face once he was called on it, to say nothing of his opposition to the death penalty, endorsement of affirmative action, and ambivalence toward gun rights, it is difficult to draw any other conclusion but that Steele is, to put it optimistically, a "moderate" Republican.

Simply put, he is exactly that sort of Republican of which conservatives have grown exhausted and to which they attribute their movement's reversals of fortune.