| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Great Gaffesby | ||||
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Part of me hopes that Michael Steele sticks around forever, if only so The Daily Show can keep making Muppet Michael Steele segments for our amusement. This character has been one of The Daily Show’s strongest and most biting recurring segments, and it’s a valuable one for political comedy. While the RNC Chairman was Jon Stewart’s fifth-largest target in 2010, he has been virtually ignored by late-night comedy outside of Comedy Central and Saturday Night Live, despite public perception. Considering his constant, embarrassing presence in the news, it’s a curious oversight.
Michael Steele’s election to the RNC chairmanship in early 2009, right after Obama’s historic inauguration, was widely viewed as Republican cynicism poorly executed. The stance of the Republican party toward minorities, mixed with Steele’s stated goal of applying the GOP’s values to “urban and suburban hip-hop settings” and his use of non-business English phrases like “off the hook” and “bling-bling” in interviews – well, it all felt like either an oblivious misstep by an out-of-touch and desperate political party, or a trap. The only explanation for the late-night silence must be that this clear fault line made most comedians wary or uncomfortable enough to stay away.
That is, except for Stephen Colbert, who instantly challenged him to a conservative rap battle.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Conservative Rap Battle - Stephen Challenges Michael Steele | ||||
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The Daily Show covered the RNC’s election in their segment “Elephant in the Room”, noting first that Steele was running against a candidate who had just distributed a CD called “Barack the Magic Negro,” as well as several other candidates who still belonged to country clubs that refused to admit minorities. The point: this was the group of people that elected Michael Steele. Stewart immediately called bullshit on Steele’s hollow promise of change that included a defense of the party’s most conservative and exclusionary policies.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Elephant in the Room | ||||
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From there, Steele’s behavior only got weirder and more baroque. The first Sesame Street comparison came in October 2009, when The Daily Show covered a new blog “disgruntled Muppet restaurant character Michael Steele” had created for young people, condescendingly called “What Up?”:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| You’ve Got Fail | ||||
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Then in April there was the big scandal: the RNC’s lesbian-themed bondage club visits. This finally got widespread late-night attention, though the jokes could just have easily been about Charlie Sheen. But from Comedy Central’s point of view, the situation at the RNC had become so absurd that it could no longer be mocked in human form. And lo, Muppet Michael Steele was born.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Michael Steele Plays the Race Card | ||||
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The Muppet approach to Steele is great comedy. It works for the same reason it works in their Gitmo’s World segments. The puppets give the writers license to say much more incisive things than a straight commentary could allow. They can be meaner – and truer – because hey, puppets are just cute.
It’s to The Daily Show and Colbert Report’s credit that they’ve seen past the distractions of his cringe-worthiest gaffes and focused on his proficiency at doublespeak. This is the real Michael Steele. In one of his earliest Steele segments, Colbert picked up on his attempt to redefine the meaning of the word “jobs,” just so he could deny Obama any credit for the stimulus plan:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The New Word Czar | ||||
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The same vocabulary tricks were on display this week. Steele claimed that a fundraiser shouldn’t be judged on how much money he had at the end versus the beginning of his term. Stewart dismissed this as “some Jedi bullshit.” It’s pure nonsense, and it’s comedians, not journalists, who are calling him on it.
Saturday Night Live also picked up on this same truth last year. In Kenan Thompson’s interpretation Michael Steele is strapped to an electric buzzer operated by Rush Limbaugh, who shocks Steele into repeating approved GOP talking points.
Weekend Update’s radio-controlled Michael Steele and The Daily Show share the same message: behind the doublespeak, behind the urban outreach, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee is just a puppet.
Stephen Hoban is a writer living in New York.
