Dear Michael Steele,
Don't do it, Mike!
Sorry for the familiarity, but given that you're our former lieut-guv and all, I thought it would be OK. Plus, this is urgent, and there's simply no time for formalities.
I saw in the New York Post last week that you're back in the job market, now that the Republican National Committee has shown you the door, and you're already talking to both Fox News and CNN about becoming a paid commentator.
No big shock there, given that you were previously a Fox talker and barely broke your media stride during the couple of years that you chaired the RNC. And no surprise because TV is obviously your natural habitat — you look good, you schmooze well and, probably most important in this medium, at any point in time you are likely to say something crazy.
And we all know how much the cable networks love a verbal train wreck.
But you don't have to be the guy that provides it. I don't know what your other options might be at this point — your low favorables here in Maryland probably make a run for office in your home state an exercise in futility.
But surely a guy like you can do more than follow that well-worn path of ex-officeholders to the nearest cable chatterfest. I beg you, don't join that already crowded holding pen for politicians with nothing else to do until their next, if any, campaign.
Nothing wrong, of course, with taking the paycheck someone wants to give you to tide you over between jobs. Assuming, that is, that you're actually between jobs and not a permanent former whatever — because some of these exes seem too happy Greek-chorusing about the government to actually jump back into the hot seats themselves.
I also wonder if there's a little too much supply for what has to be a diminishing demand for former officeholders telling the current officeholders how to do their jobs. For one thing, how long can you be out of office before what you have to say becomes less and less newsy? And for another, the cachet of being, say, a potential presidential candidate fades if you end up not actually running.
So, Mike, if you must, go join Huck and Spitz and Sarah and Newt and the rest of the political airwaves gang. Maybe you can even get on the gravy train that some of them have been riding. You know, the one that follows the familiar route of leaving office, getting a talking-head gig, writing a book, promoting the book on the aforementioned talking-head gig, seeing the sales increase, generating talk of a run for office, etc.
But that would be so predictable for someone so unpredictable.
Looking back over your greatest gaffes … I mean, hits … I see untapped potential for you to take your particular show on some roads less traveled.
Remember that time you went off on a rant about how President Obama shouldn't be using empathy as a criterion for judicial nominees? You could become a cooler version of the Chris Farley character on "Saturday Night Live," the guy brought in to motivate teenagers and other slackers. Instead of his cautionary crescendo about how he "lives in a van down by the river," you would have, "I'll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind!"
No? Not quite right? No worries, you are a multifaceted guy. Who can forget how well you did the fashion diva thing in that GQ interview? You dished about watching the Oscars to see "who's got what dress on … what they're doing with the hair." And how you weren't "feelin'" Michelle Obama's inauguration gown, wishin' instead that she had "done a Valentino."
The possibilities are endless: You could join Stacy and Clinton in a special: "What Not to Wear — in the White House." You could partner with Joan Rivers for "Federal Fashion Police." Or you could give the old RNC gang a real auf wiedersehen by turning the next party chairmanship battle into Project GOPway.