Michael Steele Takes on Washington Post

Michael Steele, the Republican candidate in Maryland's Senate race, victim of the Washington Post's desire to keep him out of the Senate tore into the liberal newspaper on "Fox News Sunday."

Transcript continues below the fold. Video available here.

WALLACE: Lieutenant Governor, the Washington Post endorsed your opponent, Ben Cardin, over the weekend, and they had some very harsh words for you. Let's put them up on the screen.

STEELE: Okay.

WALLACE: "Despite his efforts to construct an image as an independent-minded newcomer, there is nothing in Michael Steele's past — no achievement, no record, no evidence and certainly no command of the issues — to support it."

The Post says that as lieutenant governor for the past four years, you have had marginal influence.

STEELE: I know. Isn't it a shame? Well, you know, Chris, that is pitiful. It is absolutely pitiful, and that's nothing more than what the Baltimore Sun said about me four years ago, that I bring nothing to the table but the color of my skin. They were just a little bit more sophisticated in their ignorance.

My conversation with the editorial board didn't go the way they wanted it to go because I wouldn't kowtow and answer the questions the way they wanted me to answer them. I'm my own person. I don't care about the Washington Post. The Washington Post is not going to get me elected. The Washington Post is not going to prevent me from getting elected.

They're a bunch of folks, as I told them in the interview, who sit in an ivory tower, who have no clue what real life is about out here. It's easy to pontificate when you don't have to put a vote on the line, when you don't have to look a voter in the eye and let them know what you really think, so what — they come after me.

Now, how many times very you seen the Washington Post do a second editorial on a candidate that they didn't even endorse? It makes no sense. So clearly, I must be winning this race, and the Washington Post will have to write that headline, "Steele Wins", and then eat it.