Who is the Elephant Hiding Behind Dana Milbank?

From ABC News Online, quoting the Washington Post:

"'I've got an 'R' here, a scarlet letter,'" said Steele of his party affiliation. "'If this race is about Republicans and Democrats, I lose.'"

...

In contrast to his telling Milbank on Monday that he "'probably'" did not want President Bush campaigning for him given the President's unpopularity in Maryland, Steele in his ABC interview refused to challenge Bush's handling of Iraq, expressing confidence that the "president is trusting the intelligence that he's getting from the generals on the ground."

There are serious factors of policy and style that may make some candidates more atractive than others to different demographic groups. But nowhere are the following descriptions considered positive: unprincipled, stupid, clumsy, disloyal, cowardly. Yet all five of these brutal adjectives apply to Michael Steele's inexplicable decision to badmouth the Republican Party - the party he once chaired in Maryland, the party whose nomination he now seeks for the United States Senate, the second-highest non-Presidential office governing Maryland - from behind a reporter's fig-leaf sized shield over a steak dinner in, apparently, Takoma Park.

Steele should have decided whether he wants to run for the Republican nomination for Senate now, or retire from politics. If the former, don't badmouth the party who is funding and staffing your campaign office and whose voters you will need to show up to have a snowball's chance of winning against veteran political street fighters like Cardin or Mfume. If you want to write deeds and mortgage notes in DC, shut your campaign office and let a real Republican who likes being a Republican get the nod. I do not particularly warm up to the Republican Party but their registered voters do deserve a Republican nominee who is not ashamed of his party. Now that he has badmouthed his party - insulting every Republican incumbent whose numbers he seeks to join - the voters and his own party may "86" his orgy of maudlin political self-pity and call him a cab home to Largo.

More on Crablaw's take on Steele's Profile in Cowardice and Political Suicide.