Steele Is RNC's First Black Chairman
By John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 31, 2009; Page A06

Republicans yesterday elected former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael S. Steele to lead their party, selecting the GOP's first black national chairman. The outcome also signaled a clear break from the leadership of President George W. Bush, whose hand-picked party chief was among those Steele defeated for the post.
With their party in disarray and seeking a new direction after consecutive electoral defeats, members of the Republican National Committee turned to Steele, who promised in his campaign for the post to help the GOP improve upon its dismal showing among black and Latino voters last fall. The D.C.-raised Steele excited many Republicans as a potential public counterweight to President Obama and a man who could help reframe the way voters view "the party of Lincoln," as he called it.

Marylander Michael S. Steele's election yesterday as chairman of the Republican National Committee capped an improbable political journey for a onetime seminarian that began in an even more improbable place.

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Amid a series of abandoned careers in the church, law and business, Steele began toiling in GOP politics in the early 1990s in Prince George's County, a heavily African American jurisdiction where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 8 to 1.
Powered by charisma, charm and an extraordinary handshake, and undaunted by long odds, Steele ascended to chairman of the beleaguered county GOP, then to chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, before being chosen to run for lieutenant governor in 2002 on the ticket of then-Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
Ehrlich's election as Maryland's first Republican governor in a generation provided a springboard for Steele to get national attention at a time when his party was seeking to reach out to minorities. He was given a prominent speaking role at the 2004 national convention.
But hopes of realigning Maryland politics were dashed four years later, when "L.G.," as Ehrlich commonly called his highly visible lieutenant governor, branched out on his own and was solidly defeated in a U.S. Senate bid. Steele received ample help from party leaders in Washington but said little about his party affiliation at home.
Steele's only other solo attempt at statewide office, for the more obscure job of comptroller in 1998, also ended in defeat, with a third-place finish in the GOP primary.
Still a favorite among party activists nationally, Steele regrouped quickly after his Senate defeat, taking the reins of GOPAC, a group that recruits candidates nationally and that has provided a platform for his oratory for the past two years. Steele's bid for RNC chairman, in the view of most analysts, was further bolstered by the nation's election of its first African American president.
"This is an era of improbability, and Michael Steele emerged at the right time and the right place," said Ronald Walters, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.
Steele's roots are in the District, a fact he alluded to yesterday when addressing the party activists who had elected him. "As a little boy growing up in this town, this is awesome," Steele said.
He was born at Andrews Air Force Base but adopted through a Catholic charity and raised in the Petworth neighborhood of Northwest Washington. Both Steele's mother and stepfather were Democrats, and the Catholic Church was central to his upbringing. In 1977, Steele entered Johns Hopkins University, where he became student government president.
After college, Steele moved to a Catholic seminary. He later joined a handful of other "novices" at an old house in Lawrence, Mass. The program was supposed to last a year, but Steele left after six months, in February 1983.
After giving up a possible career in the church, Steele chose law. He was a paralegal, a law student at Georgetown and then a lawyer from 1991 to 1998, working for a D.C. law office and then for real estate giant Mills Corp. During that time, Steele moved his family -- it now includes his wife, Andrea, and two sons -- to Largo. There, he began his ascent through the party.

Online, Sarah Palin Has Unkind Words for the Press
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 9, 2009; C01
Sarah Palin, still smarting over coverage of her vice presidential run, calls the media's reporting on her family "very scary" and says there may be "a class issue" that explains the more sympathetic treatment of Caroline Kennedy.
The Alaska governor also took a swipe at Katie Couric over the CBS interview in which Palin stumbled badly, saying: "Katie, you're not the center of everyone's universe."
Palin did her venting Monday with John Ziegler, a conservative radio talk show host turned filmmaker, who posted excerpts online to promote the sale of a forthcoming DVD titled "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected." "I think this woman was assassinated by the media," he said yesterday.
By turns aggravated and bemused, Palin complained in the video that her press office is still getting calls about rumors that she is not the mother of her infant son. She called this "quite absurd," saying she is "frustrated that I wasn't believed that Trig was really my son.
"When did we start accepting as hard news sources bloggers, anonymous bloggers especially? It's a sad state of affairs in the world of the media today, mainstream media especially, that they're going to rely on bloggers, anonymous bloggers, for their hard news information."
Mainstream news outlets reported the rumor in September only after John McCain's campaign revealed the pregnancy of Palin's teenage daughter Bristol, citing the chatter about Trig as the reason for the disclosure. Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan -- who is hardly anonymous -- has questioned why Palin would not release medical records to prove she is the boy's mother, but has also posted information supporting her account.
Although her campaign brushed aside most inquiries on the subject, Palin asked: "What is the double standard here, why reporters would choose to believe lies, reporters especially not just taking one extra step to get to the facts . . . Is it sexism? What is it that drives someone to believe the worst and perpetuate the worst, in terms of gossip and lies?"
Palin also objected to reports that Bristol and her fiance, Levi Johnston, are "high school dropouts and they're going to just look for government handouts to raise their child and stuff, nothing could be further from the truth. And I've asked some in the media to correct that, and they haven't corrected it, and that gets frustrating." Palin contacted People magazine, the Associated Press and the Anchorage Daily News last week. She said Johnston -- who, according to the Anchorage paper, recently quit his job as an apprentice electrician -- is taking a high school correspondence course, and that Bristol is still a student.
Palin was hit by an avalanche of coverage after her surprise nomination in August, some of it critical of her Alaska record and her qualifications for the vice presidency, and some of it more personal, questioning how she could handle the job with five children. Tina Fey's "Saturday Night Live" impersonation cemented an impression of Palin as a bit of a ditz.
Ziegler showed Palin a clip of Fey saying, "I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers." Palin's reaction: "Cool, fine, come attack me, but when you make a suggestion like that that attacks a kid, that kills me."
Palin questioned whether Kennedy's bid for the Senate "will be handled with kid gloves," and if so, "we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here" when contrasted with the scrutiny of her campaign. Kennedy, of course, is trying for an appointment to be one of 100 rather than running for vice president, and has drawn critical coverage lately for a series of halting interviews.
Palin criticized the McCain camp's decision to send her back for a second round with Couric, and tried to explain why she declined to name a single publication she reads. Palin said she interpreted Couric's question as "Do you read, what do you guys do up there," but conceded: "Perhaps I was just too flippant in my answer back to her." However, Couric made no reference to Alaska in her question, asking, "What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this?"
Asked by Ziegler how she would have fared as Barack Obama's running mate, Palin accused the press of ideological "hypocrisy," saying: "I think they would have loved me as a candidate. . . . You would have seen an absolutely different and . . . much prettier profile of Sarah Palin and the Palin family and my administration."
Would she do it again? "That's a darned good question," Palin said, before concluding that she would. But she doesn't want people in the "Lower 48" being "sucked into believing what too many in the mainstream media want them to believe."
Ziegler, whose film will be sold online next month, said Palin was "very concerned about appearing whiny" before the 50-minute sit-down at her Wasilla home. He said he found her Republican convention speech "awesome" but had wondered about the media portrayal of her as "a diva or a wack job." He now believes that "the fact that she's mocked is a travesty."
On his Web site, Ziegler says that when Palin saw a picture of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, "she literally let out a shriek and, pointing to his photograph, declared, 'THAT guy is EVIL!' "

More Bush Secrecy rejected by the court

Judge Rejects Keeping White House Visitor Logs Private
By Pete Yost
Associated Press Saturday, January 10, 2009; Page A07
A federal judge yesterday rejected the Bush administration's latest attempt to keep secret the identities of White House visitors, and he declared that the government illegally deleted Secret Service computer records.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth concluded that the deletions took place before October 2004, when the Secret Service transferred large numbers of entry and exit logs to the White House and then deleted copies of them.
The deletions ceased after the archivist to the United States instructed the Secret Service to stop the practice and after various private organizations went to court in an effort to gain access to the logs, according to papers filed in the case. The deletions date to at least 2001, the government's papers added, the year President Bush took office.
Lamberth's ruling brushed aside the government's argument that revealing Secret Service logs would impede the president's ability to perform his constitutional duties.
The judge said that the likelihood of harm is not great enough to justify curtailing the public disclosure goals of the Freedom of Information Act.
While the case was a setback for the Bush White House, the effect of the claim of a presidential communications privilege succeeded in dragging out the lawsuit until the end of the Bush administration.
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked for the records in 2006 to determine whether nine conservative religious leaders visited the White House and Vice President Cheney's residence. A separate lawsuit by CREW seeks any Secret Service logs for White House visits by a Texas businessman who allegedly tried to sell access to administration officials in exchange for contributions to Bush's presidential library fund.
Anne Weismann, CREW's chief counsel, said yesterday that the group hopes the incoming Obama administration will take heed of the court's decision and ensure that Secret Service records are available to the public.
The administration's request to extend the presidential communications privilege to Secret Service logs is inconsistent with other decisions by the federal courts in Washington, Lamberth said.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the White House is reviewing the judge's opinion and is considering all legal options.
Secret Service logs have been used in investigations by Congress and federal prosecutors. For example, the logs have revealed the comings and goings of former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky and Clinton campaign donor Denise Rich, the wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich, who was pardoned in the closing hours of the Clinton administration.
In the spring of 2006, amid an influence-peddling scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement declaring that the logs are not open to the public.
Four months later, Cheney's office told the Secret Service in a letter that visitor records for the vice president's personal residence "are and shall remain subject to the exclusive ownership, custody and control of" the office of the vice president.