Steele-ing For A Fight.

Erstwhile, eagle-eyed JackRabbit Café contributor and Minneapolis-based musician Bernie King--The Best-Looking Man in Show Business Today©--passed along this peek at pious RNC Chairman Michael Steele musing about his imaginary friend:

From the New York Daily News:

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has been having some interesting conversations with God about the criticism he's gotten lately from his fellow GOPers.

"I just pray on it," he told GQ Magazine about the flak, some of it inspired by his comment that the GOP needs to go in a more urban, "hip-hop" direction. "And I ask God, ‘Hey, let me show just a little bit of love, so I absolutely don't go out and kick this person's ass.'"

I don't pretend to know much of anything at all about the Bible. I was under the bridge smoking cigarettes during Sunday school, so I missed all of that. But I'm fairly certain there is a lot of mayhem and fiery death in that book, so maybe that's where Steele gets his ass-kickin' from.

Steele, a former seminarian, may soon be praying to keep his job, too, after other comments he made in the interview seemed to challenge Republican orthodoxy.

Asked if he thought women had a right to abortion, he said, "Yeah. Absolutely."

And while he said he was opposed to gay marriage, he came out against a constitutional amendment banning it - as the GOP platform recommends for both gay marriage and abortion.

"Just as a general principle, I don't like mucking around with the Constitution," he told the magazine.

If Steele is drummed out of the RNC post for his relatively moderate positions, the real reason for his ouster will be more complicated: his own muddled messaging, his comments on abortion and his race. There are undoubtedly still GOP Confederates in positions of power both inside the party and out who despise choice and who remain uncomfortable with a committee chairman whose skin is darker than their own.  

If  ousted, I see Steele breaking away from the Confederate wing of the GOP, positioning himself as a "reasonable" Republican alternative and courting moderate, undecided independents as a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

But he'll never be as funny as Sarah Palin.