**

Comparing conservatives to black people is the new black, apparently:

Rush = Oprah

A week ago a reporter from a major American newspaper called me to talk about Rush. I agreed to do the interview provided it was recorded and that I could air it after the story the reporter was working on ran. The reporter asked me if Rush was a "leader," and I said no. He is, I continued, a communicator, a pundit and an entertainer, one of the two best in the country --along with Oprah. And a man of extraordinary influence. I think the Rush-Oprah comparison startled the reporter, but it is exactly correct. They have the same reach, and though they have almost completely different approaches to life, both are deeply sincere about their views and thus far beyond merely "effective." Both communicators change lives. [full story - h/t Ross Douthat, who concurs]

Rush = Jesse

Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s. He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise – and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important. [full story]

Talking Android Bobby = Barack

He is the Republican party's wunderkind. His family's triumph-over-adversity narrative is nearly as powerful as that of U.S. President Barack Obama's. And now, Bobby Jindal, the 37-year-old Governor of Louisiana, is closer to becoming a household name — launching onto the national platform on prime-time television by delivering the Republican party's rebuttal to the President's address to Congress.

It's a moment in history that's being compared to the keynote address a then-unknown Mr. Obama delivered in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. [full story]

Talking Android Michael = Barack

What few people know is that when Obama first took to the national stage in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, there was another African-American man who was already climbing the political ladder of success within the Republican Party. In fact, former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele gave the counterpoint to Obama's speech that year. Now, he's vying for chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, which would make him the most recognized Black conservative in the nation. ESSENCE.com talked to Steele about taking on this monumental task, convincing Black folks to better understand the party, and the possibility of one day stepping into Obama's shoes as president. [full story]

Talking Android Michael ≠ Barack, because he's his evil twin (Or is that Talking Android Michael ƒ-1 Barack? ≅?)

Evil twin, nemesis, archenemy—whatever the term, every great protagonist has one. Superman had Bizarro, his alternate-universe self. Spock from Star Trek had the shady, goateed "mirror" Spock. Super Mario has the cackling Wario.

And Barack Obama has Michael Steele. [full story]

Talking Android Bobby + Talking Android Michael = Barack

Not long after Barack Obama delivers his pseudo–State of the Union on February 24, the official televised Republican riposte will be uncorked by a guy who violates almost every prevailing liberal stereotype of the contemporary GOP: the governor of Louisiana, Piyush “Bobby” Jindal. At 37, Jindal is the nation’s youngest governor and the first Indian-American to win statewide office in U.S. history. The son of Punjabi immigrants, he’s an Ivy League–educated Rhodes scholar and an unrepentant policy wonk, with heterodox views on his specialty, which is health care, and a reputation for competence as much as ideology. For all these reasons and others, Jindal strikes many savvy conservatives as the answer to their party’s prayers: a brainy, precocious, multiculti change agent—a Republican Obama.

Precious few have ever described Michael Steele quite that way, though his recent rise to national prominence is hard to imagine outside the context of our new president. The victory of Steele, a former Maryland lieutenant governor and failed Senate candidate, in the contest to become chairman of the Republican National Committee came as a surprise; he’d often been criticized as insufficiently far right to win. But against a field that included an incumbent Bush holdover, a southern party operative who until recently belonged to an all-white country club, and the genius who sent out that infamous Christmas CD with the song “Barack the Magic Negro,” Steele emerged as the first African-American head of the RNC—having argued that he offered a solution to what he called the party’s “image problem.” [full story]

(Oh, on a related topic: Slumdog Millionaire = Crash.)

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** For those of you wondering about the quote in the image up top: It seems talking androids are fueled by shit, because Michael Steele recently sat down to feast on the pungent fruit of Rush Limbaugh's meaty ass:

In the new game of chicken between Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh, the loser is...Michael Steele, who now says he never meant to diminish the voice and leadership of Limbaugh.

In an interview with the Politico, Steele said: "My intent was not to go after Rush - I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh. I was maybe a little bit inarticulate...There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership." [full story]

Talking Android Bobby Jindal asked for a plate of what Steele was having and chowed down as well.

Michael Steel / Talking Android MC

From Talking Points Memo

Michael Steele is promising a drastic makeover of the Republican Party's image -- and he really means it!

"We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles," Steele told the Washington Times. "But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings."

"It will be avant garde, technically," he said of the new public relations team he's signing on. "It will come to the table with things that will surprise everyone - off the hook." He also added: "I don't do 'cutting-edge.' That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge." [a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/steele-promises-new-image-for-republicans-in-hip-hop-settings.php" target="new">full story]

If you're on Facebook, you can send one of those talking android trading cards to your friends using this handy tool.

Roland Burris, Talking Android

From the NYT:

Senator Roland W. Burris acknowledged in documents made public on Saturday that the brother of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich sought campaign fund-raising help from him in the weeks and months before his appointment to succeed Barack Obama as Illinois’s junior senator.

Mr. Burris said he provided no money to Governor Blagojevich’s campaign in response to the brother’s request.

The disclosure was inconsistent with Mr. Burris’s earlier descriptions, including one under oath, of his conversations with those closest to the former governor. It raised new questions about events that preceded Mr. Burris’s unusual appointment in late December, and prompted some Republican lawmakers in Illinois to immediately demand an inquiry into whether Mr. Burris committed perjury. [full story]

If you are on FB, you can send your own talking android to your friends.

Want to send someone a talking android on Facebook? Now you can.

"Republicans wear sneakers, too." - Michael Jordan on why he wouldn't endorse Harvey Gantt in Gantt's run for Jesse Helms' senate seat. h/t Christopher Chambers for the reminder.

Hey there. My post about John McWhorter that Gawker linked to was written a few years ago, and I disabled comments on those pages when I moved the site to a new CMS. If you want to leave a comment, you can leave it here.