The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

Forget every other criticism of Michael Steele's chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. Ralph Z. Hallow digs up the dynamite:

When Michael S. Steele took over as chairman of the Republican National Committee earlier this year, he brought along longtime personal assistant Belinda Cook and gave her a salary nearly three times what her predecessor made.
Mrs. Cook's son, Lee, also landed an RNC job.
Mr. Steele hired another family friend, Angela Sailor, to be the party's outreach director at a salary of $180,000, more than double her predecessor's compensation, though new responsibilities have been added to the job, according to a high-ranking RNC official and Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.

This is potentially devastating. There are too many out-of-work Republican operatives for the RNC chief to be awarding six-figure salaries under circumstances that invite accusations of favoritism. I've been a Michael Steele fan for years, but he must keep in mind those 77 votes for Katon Dawson on the sixth ballot.