For all those questioning whether RNC Chairman Michael Steele was a “Brutha”…wonder no more. He allegedly likes to make it rain…Republican style.
(Seriously, Mo’Kelly has partied and hung out with Steele before…this is absolutely NOT shocking in the least.)
The Daily Caller‘s Jonathan Strong has basically won the morning with a story about RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s lavish lifestyle on the road. Strong reports that Steele “once raised the possibility of using party money to buy a private jet for his travel,” and has run up some substantial tabs at some of our nation’s nicest hotels. But if you ask me, he sort of buried the lede… probably strategically! Because look what awaits you in paragraph six:
Once on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.
Oh, wow, awesome. Note that Strong’s done his due diligence on the amount spent. As of this writing, Voyeur’s website is not loading, probably because every single staff member of the Democratic National Committee is currently on the site, looking for images of Steele in the champagne room. But check out some of the Yelp testimonials:
The girl at the door sent us in right away and told us to go to a table by the bar and get some free Champagne. Seriously. This club is amazing. There are topless “dancers” acting out S&M scenes throughout the night on one of the side stages, there’s a half-naked girl hanging from a net across the ceiling and at one point I walked to the bathroom and pretty much just stopped dead in my tracks to watch two girls simulating oral sex in a glass case.Really understated elegance here.
Also, Lindsay Lohan was at our table at one point.
Other relatively recent reviews testify to Voyeur being something of a “velvet rope” type of place — more a haven for celebrities to dip their toes into some sanitized version of outre culture than an out-and-out bondage club. Like a Ruby Tuesday of gothic sex at which you might see Mickey Rourke.
Strong focuses primarily on Steele in his article, noting that he declined requests for an interview. He reports a fair share of off-the-record, internecine disgruntlement, however:
Complaints, almost always expressed off the record, have been bitter. “This is not somebody who is out recruiting candidates,” said an aide who worked closely with Steele. “He is not meeting with donors. He’s not asking for money. The guy is writing his book or doing his speaking gigs, or whatever the hell else he fills his days with. Those are his priorities.”
Well, maybe he is recruiting some very unique candidates?
Take a look at more of the RNC’s lavish spending habits:
UPDATE: Greg Sargent says the RNC is undertaking an investigation of the Voyeur West Hollywood expenditures, and has been quick to establish that Steele was not the patron in question. A statement from the RNC reads thusly:
We are investigating the expenditure in question. The story willfully and erroneously suggests that the expenditure in question was one belonging to the Chairman. This was a reimbursement made to a non-committee staffer.The Chairman was never at the location in question, he had no knowledge of the expenditure, nor does he find the use of committee funds at such a location at all acceptable.
Good reporting would make that distinction crystal clear. The committee has requested that the monies be returned to the committee and that the story be corrected so that it is accurate.“
Elsewhere, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jay Bookman wonders if Steele has finally “run out of lives as RNC Chair.” And earlier this year, former White House official/Bob Dole spokesman Doug MacKinnon sounded alarms, slamming Steele (along with Florida Governor Charlie Crist), for “reckless and self-indulgent behavior” and for placing a higher priority on promoting his “ego-centric book.”
FURTHER UPDATE: Alex Pappas of the Daily Caller has identified Erik Brown as the staffer responsible for the RNC-funded escapade. Brown owns Dynamic Marketing Inc. a marketing and consulting firm recently linked to California GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner, and has apparently attended an NFL football game with RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
Tucker Carlson, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller, responded to RNC complaints about this morning’s article, saying:
Our questions remain: Why did the committee spend more than $17,000 on private jets in the month of February? How and why was RNC business conducted in a bondage-themed nightclub, and how and why were the nearly $2,000 in charges that resulted approved by RNC staff?
__________________
It’s official, Michael Steele is Black. He may not vote like a Black man, but damnit…if he’s making it rain…he’s one of us! Michael, these videos are for you.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLeUTpwFjI]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKslFrDovg]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Enot8jsvqc]
[Stay tuned…the new mrmokelly.com website is coming to you in 2010. Set your browsers now.]
5 responses to “Dear Michael Steele – There’s No Sex in the Champagne Room”
"The Emporor has no clothes"…and is sporting a leather zipper mask, a ball gag and handcuffs!
This is what makes the Republican Party so special; their particular brand of hypocrisy is cloaked deeply in the repressed psyches of their collective "mind" (as officially given to them by their rabid, outlandish "spokesperson-of-the-moment").
For a party obsessed with socialism, the sanctioned, endorsed and accepted mantra of the party screed seems to defy all reason except illogical, fear-mongering, hate and race baiting, self-serving belief systems that undermine the potential of the United States and threaten it's future role and viability within the world community.
If there truly is a socialist tinge to the current politics of "one size fits all", it is in the determination of the right that you are either "for us or against us" with no wiggle room for compromise or substantive discussion. If that doesn't raise visions of Stalinist, Marxist governing, I don't know what does.
Get over yourselfs, RNC. Take your chocolate muppet, your psychotic candidates, your "tea bagging", sexually repressed deviants, your vapid "buzz-word" driven agenda, and your hoards of the arrogantly ignorrant and go found your own little schizophrenic country somewhere else. Or, in short, "America: Love and LEAVE IT!"
P.S. See if you can catch a ride with Limbaugh: He's supposed to be leaving. A terminal case of Health Care, I believe.
Happy trails and, please, don't write.
The question should be: How will conservative talk radio/TV react?
Remember, nobody is above being thrown under the bus. Nobody is bigger than the movement. If Steele becomes a liability, we will find out from those folk, when they turn on him.
One thing Republicans are much better at than Democrats: Cleaning up their own mess.
Or did I miss all those statements from Democrats condemning John Edwards?
I didn't condemn Michael Steele. But the difference is that the Republican Party has time and time again positioned itself as the party of "morals and values." In other words, the hypocrisy is what angers people, not the indiscretions themselves.
For instance, if/when the politician adamantly against the present Health care reform bill because of the abortion provisions is exposed for having his mistress have an abortion, the anger will be at the hypocrisy not at the actions in and of itself.
Ted Haggard…huge anti-gay operative, exposed
Senator Larry Craig…huge anti-gay politician, exposed.
And so forth. It's the hypocrisy.
I hope Steele was getting his freak on…makes him more down-to-earth. And I've always thought he was down to earth in the times we've spoken. We've hung at a Prince concert together. I know he can party. I just don't happen to agree with any of his politics. I believe he gravitated to a Republican party in need of Black faces. If he's a Democrat, he doesn't get the chance to be Lt. Governor or run for Senator in Maryland.
There was room for him to make a name for himself in the Republican party, a party in need of Black stars. Strategically it made sense and I don't begrudge him.
But I think he forgot the nature of the deal he made with the devil.
Michael Steele is in hot water now. But if he's called the "N" word, i just betcha all his conservative buddies such as Malkin, Parker, the Pill popper and Howard Beale, Jr. (Glenn Beck) will cry outrage.