Steele Laughs at Specter

RNC chair says rowdy protesters are "distinctly American"

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele burst out laughing Wednesday after watching a clip of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) insisting that the town hall protesters are “not necessarily representative of America.”

Asked to respond to the clip during an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, Steele had to gather himself just to answer the question.

“I’m sorry, I’m laughing, I’m sorry,” Steele said as he tried to respond to Specter.

“Not representative of America? Well, then who are they representative of?” Steele asked. “This is part of the craziness that we’re hearing from the left on this issue. They’re trying to obfuscate the fact that the American people ticked off, as one of the participants said yesterday, and they’re very concerned.”

Steele then turned his fire on President Barack Obama and the White House, whom he accused of stacking a town hall audience in New Hampshire Tuesday with supporters.

“You’ve got the president, who has a town hall meeting, and we applaud him for that, and then [White House press secretary Robert] Gibbs comes out and talks about how peaceful and respectful it was,” Steele said. “Yes, it’s great when you stack the room. I mean, it’s not the hardest, it’s like you have this line that you have to get into to get in.”

As the RNC chairman was accusing the White House of stacking its audience, he also dismissed charges from some Democratic lawmakers that the GOP is guilty of the same.

“Anyone out there who says that the Republican Party or state parties or Republican activists are out there doing that are flat-out lying. They’re wrong,” he said. “We are not bussing in folks like the Democrats are with SEIU members. We’re not coordinating the messaging and trying to disrupt these processes.”

Steele also blasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) who called the protesters “un-American” in an op-ed Monday in USA Today.

“They’re being distinctly American,” Steele said of the rough town hall audiences. “They’re being uniquely American, in expressing openly their frustration with what they hear their political leadership saying.”

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