Chauncey DeVega's World of Ghetto Nerds-Guest Post Alert--Michael Steele as Bizarro Superman

As always, We Respectable Negroes are a democratic group. When we see something good we ask, "how can we be included?" When someone offers a corrective or insight, we say, "sure, here is some time to shine." Thus, enter our guest blogger Heavy Armor of the site Evil Giant Robots!, and his suggestion that THE (notice the irony and self-deprecation) Chauncey DeVega may have been a bit off in his assertion that Michael Steele of GOP fame is the DC character "Steel." As Heavy Armor suggests, the current Tom Negro of the GOP could perhaps be closer to the character, Bizzaro Superman.

Guess what? Me thinks Heavy Armor may in fact be right!

As always, we love to host folks with interesting ideas on our site, so if you have a piece to contribute, or something noteworthy to share, by all means send it along.

****

In response to a blog post here which compared new GOP Chairman Michael Steele with John Henry Irons (after making the assertion that President Barack Obama is Superman), I opined that perhaps Michael Steele's selection as GOP chairman fits not so much with John Henry Irons, but rather as Bizarro Superman.

Like most comic book characters, Bizzaro has many incarnations and histories spanning decades. In the interests of making a concise comparison, however, I've decided to use the version from the last Superman Animated Series to demonstrate the creation of Bizzaro and how it related to Michael Steele's selection as GOP chairman.



The GOP, desperate to find their own "Superman" (especially seeing as how their 'Republican Wonder Woman' project failed miserably) , decides to "emulate" the flavor of the moment once again. And, on the surface, the GOP's Superman will have many of the same powers and abilities. However, this Superman is answerable only to Lex Luthor (admittedly, this version is not as smart).



Michael Steele's main ability, it would seem, would be the ability to leverage the press to attack Obama, the Democrats, and their policies while making the claim that the attacks are not racist in nature. However, the attacks will still be framed around the usual ideological talking points of the GOP, even when the talking points are outrageous, inaccurate, or outright distortions. However, this will be one of the primary methods by which Republicans will attack the Obama Administration in the years to come.

Unfortunately, there is a fatal flaw in the logic, as demonstrated in Superman TAS.



The problem with cloning a popular personality is that the results are always unpredictable - and that the results don't follow a predictable pattern. Michael Steele may be an actual bid to take the GOP closer to the "center" and make it more representative of Americans in general, but first, he'll have to overcome the image of the GOP, which is composed of people like Joe (plumber, war correspondent, GOP advisor?), Sarah (who, not too long ago, accused a sitting United States Senator of aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States. This crime was never reported by Governor Palin to the authorities, but instead exploited for political gain), David (noted White Supremacist and current/former Klansman), and that's just on the surface. It's not even including those like Grover Nordquist (he of "Starve the Government so that he could drown it in a bathtub" fame), or Senate Republicans (who scream "Tax Cuts" at the top of their lungs, happily vote for bailouts for rich investment bankers, but yell foul when the money is being directed at average Americans when the word "Union" is somehow involved).

So, is Michael Steele the real deal, or more of the same from a Party whose face hasn't changed in more than 40 years? Only time will tell.