The Democrats' Secret Weapon.

• Author: Durst, Will
• Position: Off the Map

It may be the best news the Democrats have received all year.

Not the passage of health care reform. Not their poll numbers climbing out of a hole deeper than the chasm inside of Dick Cheney's heart.

No, the best news the Democrats have gotten all year is that the head of the Republican National Committee is likely to keep his job. The Democrats have a secret weapon, and his name is Michael Steele.

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Steele is not just a major post in the GOP big tent movement, he's the post, the flaps, the ties, and the canvas. Party leaders are not going to dismiss the first African American chairman of the RNC. During an election year. Most of the places he visits, he's not just the only black guy in the room, he is often the only black guy admitted to the grounds without a police escort.

He got hired in the wake of Barack Obama altering the rules of order because if America wanted a black guy to run things, then, by God, the Republicans were going to make sure they didn't lag behind in the "We Got the Coolest African American in Politics Sweepstakes." The big difference is that the nation got a superintelligent hardworking political animal, and the Republicans got somebody who too perfectly exemplified their philosophy of "Me First!"

Right out of the box, the new RNC chairman ruffled enough feathers to stuff a Hilton full of pillowcases. Going on D. L. Hughley's CNN show in February, he referred to Rush Limbaugh as both "an entertainer" and "incendiary." Rush's fans--the vocal, visible, thick, and dense end of the Republican base--went freaking crazy, bulging the Internet like a belly explosion in a cartoon. The scorching outrage from dittoheads forced Steele to backtrack faster than a paddle ball on an elasnc string. And the mea culpas followed.

First he had to get down on hands and knees and beg the poster-boy-for-Oxycontin's forgiveness. To say that Rush was less than gracious is like implying that goose fat makes for substandard bicycle spokes. Further supplication demanded by the Fox News Nation required that Steele kiss Rush's ring. Some reports indicate Rush didn't bother taking it out of his back pocket.

Since then, Steele's...