Heretic

It’s almost tragic, the state of the Republican Party these days.

In my memory, I have never seen it in worse shape, consumed by in-fighting between those (the minority) who feel the party must tack to centrism, and others (the majority) who learned nothing from last fall’s electoral trouncing by Democrats, foolishly vowing that trending hard-right is the answer.

For the record, the former side is correct. If the GOP keeps using Sean Hannity listeners as their base, the party will continue to waste away.

Case in point: The RNC’s swift backlash this week against (current and possibly outgoing) chairman Michael Steele for making comments sympathetic to gays and women who want basic abortion rights, prompting party elders to yank Mr. Steele onto the carpet with orders to issue a full retraction (which Steele both clumsily and unconvincingly did).

However, moderate Republicans like Michael Steele represent precisely the centrist tone the GOP must adopt to have any immediate future in American politics. And judging by how hard he was rebuked by his hard-right protocol masters for blasphemy, I cannot not see Mr. Steele's pitiable situation as proof of a party determined to continue flopping into irrelevance.