† GOP Hoping To Find A Chair That’s “Just Right”: And so they did. It took six rounds of voting, but Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of MD, has been chosen the new chairman of the Republican National Committee. The New York Times notes that “both major political parties are being led by African-Americans”:

If history is any guide, Mr. Steele will be anything but a behind-the-scenes functionary, given that, with Republicans out of the White House and in the minority in Congress, the party has no dominant national figure. …

[M]any Republicans said they were drawn to Mr. Steele because of his feisty public presence and television skills, and Mr. Steele made clear, from the moment he accepted the position after six rounds of voting that took up most of an afternoon, that he would move aggressively to take on the Democrats. …

Offering a hint of the tone he would take as his party’s spokesman, Mr. Steele said the Republican Party had been unfairly caricatured by Democrats “and the media” as racist and insensitive to the needs of ordinary Americans.

“We have an image problem,” he said. “I think how we begin to correct that image problem is defining ourselves to the people of this country.”

“We’ve been misidentified as a party that doesn’t care, a party that is insensitive, a party that is unconcerned about minorities,” he said, adding, “Nothing can be further from the truth.”

Time magazine casts Steele’s selection as “an acknowledgment by the party's leadership that the GOP must quickly recast itself if it is to remain relevant to an increasingly diverse electorate no longer moved by divisive social issues”:

"He understands the importance of having candidates who appeal to different constituencies without promoting a monolithic agenda," says Kellie Ferguson, executive director of Republican Majority for Choice, a Washington-based group of moderate conservatives. (A Roman Catholic, Steele personally opposes abortion.) She added, "Hopefully, he will have an open door with social moderates and conservative Republicans and bring everyone together under what will truly be a big tent." …

Recently, Steele put out a "Blueprint for Tomorrow" that indicated a determination to strike a balance between Republicans pushing to return to the party's core principles and those who "claim we need to modernize to meet today's reality." Said he: "To my way of thinking, we must do both, and quickly." In the blueprint, Steele clearly borrows key elements of Obama's groundbreaking tactic for generating record levels of donations with innovative social-networking tools. He calls himself a "technology geek," and already posted on the RNC's main website is his "Network for the Future," which features links to Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, LinkedIn and blip.tv. At the very least, Steele knows his party needs to play catch-up.

How much catch-up? Kyle Trygstad of RealClearPolitics does the math:

After the 2004 congressional elections, Republicans held a 30-seat advantage in the House and a 10-seat edge in the Senate; the GOP now has a 77-seat deficit in the House and - should Al Franken (D- MN) be seated and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) become the next U.S. Commerce Secretary - a 20-seat deficit in the Senate.

And that's just in Congress. In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama won 53% of the popular vote, 365 electoral votes, and carried nine states that President Bush won in 2004 along with all of John Kerry's states.

In his victory speech, Steele makes it clear that he will not let anything or anyone get in his way to do what it takes to get the GOP back in the game: 

† Is Armenian Genocide Denial Good For The Jews?: In this op-ed published by the Globe & Mail (Toronto), Gerald Caplan, author of “The Betrayal of Africa,” notes that the alliance between Turkey and Israel – though “counterintuitive” – has “enrich[ed] Israel's all-important industrial-military complex” while Turkey “military, economic and diplomatic benefits.” But there’s a price to pay for Israel’s alliance with Turkey:  

As part of the Faustian bargain between the two countries, a succession of Israeli governments of all stripes has adamantly refused to recognize that in 1915 the Turkish government was responsible for launching a genocide against its Armenian minority. …

Israelis, with a few notably courageous exceptions, have actually worked against attempts to safeguard the memory of the Armenian genocide. (The bible on this issue is the excellent book by an Israeli, Yair Auron, called The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide, 2003.) …

[T]he Israeli-Turkish bargain goes well beyond Israel. Not only is Israel, of all the unlikely states in the world, a genocide denier, but also many established Jewish organizations in other countries, especially the United States, have followed suit.

Even before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s temper tantrum at Davos over Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza, “the Turkish government turned against its erstwhile ally with a vengeance” writes Caplan – even going so far as to call it a “crime against humanity," to which Israel's deputy foreign minister Majalli Whbee retorted: “Erdogan says that genocide is taking place in Gaza. We [Israel] will then recognize the Armenian-related events as genocide.”

Like America, Israel sold its soul to foster ties to a duplicitous, treacherous “ally.” Perhaps it will finally be clear to the leaders of both governments that Turkey is Islamist and will further the interests of other Muslims, rather than the interests of infidels (that is to say, Christians and Jews).

† That ‘70s Show: Break dancers are either artists or peripatetic panhandlers, depending on your point of view, reports The New York Times:

Young break dancers pile onto A, B, C and D trains between 59th Street and 125th Street in Manhattan every weekend to perform in the subway cars and collect donations. Many emanate from the same Bronx neighborhood, around Morris Avenue and 170th Street. …

Break dancing, also known as B-boying, was born in Manhattan and the South Bronx in the early 1970s, a pillar of hip-hop culture, along with rapping and graffiti. By the 1980s, its teenage pioneers were attracting worldwide acclaim; one local group, the Rock Steady Crew, was appearing in documentaries and other films and touring widely.

Now the dance has its own international competitions, with performers from as far afield as South Korea and Russia. But for the teenagers around 170th Street, it is still glued to the grit of the Bronx pavement, where, they say, break dancing is enjoying a resurgence. …

14-year-old, Rex Martinez, said, “Instead of stealing and robbing we get some honest money,” referring to the cash he collects for dancing. [Emphasis, The Stiletto.]

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): The editorial board of The New York Times is in a tizzy over these comments made by FOX News and National Public Radio pundit Juan Williams on “The O’Reilly Factor” in answer to Bill O’Reilly’s question of how Michelle Obama will use the bully pulpit as First Lady:

What they say is that she’s going to make an effort with military families. She’s going to try to do more with kids, especially her own kids. They make the point she is not going to be involved with policy as an advisor to her husband, but actually try to keep control of the family with her mother, President Obama’s mother-in-law who is living at the White House. And then finally, don’t forget, she’s got to be a role model. We never had a black woman in this position before, and she’s a mom, she’s a wife …

Let me just tell you this: If you think about liabilities for President Obama that are close to him, Joe Biden is up there. But Michelle Obama is right there. She’s got this Stokely Charmichael in a designer dress thing going. … Her instinct is to start with this “blame America,” you know, “I’m the victim.” If that stuff starts to come out, people will go bananas and she will go from being the new Jackie O to being something of an albatross.

The Times said a “nearly frothing” Williams had “defamed” Michelle Obama. It seems to The Stiletto that The Times has it backwards. During the campaign she continually defamed America and Americans, and The Stiletto hopes she can stifle her antipathy towards her country now that she is First Lady – or, can at least fake being proud of us.   

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times): The New York Times reports on Dating a Banker Anonymous, a newly formed support group for gold diggers whose banker boyfriends’ net worths are sagging the way their jowls will if they can’t afford to start getting ‘toxed when the time comes (25 years old, and certainly no later than 30):

In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”

Theirs is not the typical 12-step program.

Step 1: Slip into a dress and heels. Step 2: Sip a cocktail and wait your turn to talk. Step 3: Pour your heart out. Repeat as needed.

About 30 women, generally in their mid- to late-20s, regularly post to the Web site or attend meetings. …

Once it was seen as a blessing in certain circles to have a wealthy, powerful partner who would leave you alone with the credit card while he was busy brokering deals. Now, many Wall Street wives, girlfriends and, increasingly, exes, are living the curse of cutbacks in nanny hours and reservations at Masa or Megu. And that credit card? Canceled.

Raoul Felder, the Manhattan divorce lawyer, said that cases involving financiers always stack up as the economy starts to slip, because layoffs and shrinking bonuses place stress on relationships - and, he said, because “there aren’t funds or time for mistresses any more.”