I actually defended Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele earlier this week when the news broke that his outfit was providing reimbursement for fundraisers who took prospective donors out for a night on the town at a West Hollywood peeler bar.

And yesterday I held off from posting anything about how Family Research Council president and Baton Rouge native Tony Perkins is now counseling social conservatives not to donate money to the RNC. I held off largely because one reason beyond the strip club business Perkins gave was that the RNC committed the awful sin of hiring Ted Olson, a former U.S. Solicitor General, Republican patriot and one of the best constitutional lawyers anywhere, to represent it in a campaign finance case. Olson, whose wife Barbara was murdered while on the phone to her husband by Muslim savages who flew the plane she was on into the Pentagon on September 11, is unacceptable to Perkins because, as a practicing lawyer who has to make a living, he took on the California gay marriage case. I didn’t post about that, but if I had I would have excoriated Perkins and defended Steele.

But that’s over. Because today, Michelle Malkin reports that on top of everything else going on under Steele’s watch, he’s meeting with left-wing pro-illegal immigrant groups who are using him as publicity bait.

Malkin picks up a release from the Center For Community Change, a George Soros minion group whose mission is exactly what you’d expect given its name, which ought to depress anyone who thinks the primary action in addressing illegal immigration is – amazingly enough – putting a stop to it…

Today, ten leaders with the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) met with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to discuss the future of comprehensive immigration reform in the Republican Party. They walked away with a commitment from Steele to work with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and the party’s leadership to enlist another Republican senator’s support for comprehensive and bipartisan immigration reform.

“We are encouraged by this first step,” said Pramila Jayapal, executive director of OneAmerica, and meeting participant. “Chairman Steele clearly understands that the future of the Republican Party is dim if his party continues to play politics with immigration reform rather than come to the table to work on practical solutions to our broken immigration system. But now we need to see if Republicans will deliver additional cosponsors on the bill before April 30.”

The RNC denies Steele agreed to anything, and he probably didn’t. But even meeting with a bunch of leftist radicals who, after all, are a lot more interested in making new Democrat voters out of illegal aliens than coming up with an intelligent immigration policy indicates a profound lack of judgement the RNC simply can’t afford.

Furthermore, Steele apparently agreed to meet with these people after they staged a demonstration outside his office on March 22. That demonstration was a leftover from a mass rally of illegal aliens and their supporters on the Washington Mall that weekend, a demonstration few paid much attention to since it coincided with the Obamacare vote and the protests at the Capitol which have since provided “evidence” that Tea Party people are racists, bigots and homophobes.

Besides, the fact is that the votes are on the side of clamping down on illegal immigration. Just look at Rasmussen’s poll data and you’ll see that it’s an absolutely horrible idea to listen to Lindsey Graham on this issue (as if it’s not a horrible idea to EVER listen to Graham, but we digress)…

– By a 59-26 margin, Americans think the now-discontinued border fence should have been finished. (March 18)

– Americans think illegals are a major budget drain on the federal and state governments, by a 67-23 margin. (March 3)

– 68% say gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers already living in the United States. (March 3

What’s worse, a hard-line stance on immigration isn’t even a loser with the Hispanic vote Republicans are being told they’re cutting their throats with. The Center For Immigration Studies cites a February Zogby poll which shows that Hispanic attitudes about immigration are nothing like the “anything goes” advocacy left-wing groups like La Raza portray…

– 56 percent of Hispanics said immigration numbers are too high; 7 percent said too low; 14 percent just right.
– Just 20 percent said illegal immigration was caused by not letting in enough legal immigrants; 61 percent said inadequate enforcement.
– 15 percent said legal immigration should be increased to fill unskilled jobs; 65 percent said there are plenty of Americans available to do unskilled jobs, employers just need to pay more.
– 52 percent support enforcement to encourage illegals to go home; 34 percent support conditional legalization.

Some 54 percent of the Hispanics Zogby polled did support (30 percent of them strongly) a program by which illegals can be put on a path to citizenship if they’re made to pay a fine, learn English and go through background checks to make sure they’re not criminals – which basically amounts to an amnesty program. On the other hand, 44 percent don’t support such a program, with 33 percent strongly disapproving of it.

In other words, if Steele is planning on selling out conservatives on immigration, when there isn’t anywhere near the daylight between conservative positions on immigration policy and those of the Hispanic community, he’s got to be sent packing for sheer stupidity. Irritating the people you depend on to get Republicans elected is not how you recapture a majority, and it’s definitely not how you present the American people with a legitimate alternative on one of the most important issues facing the country.

And it’s even worse now that Arizona ranchers are being slaughtered by invading criminals at the border amid absolute chaos with drug gangs in Mexico. This is precisely the wrong time to talk about throwing the doors open; instead, it makes controlling the border of even more paramount importance.

If Steele can’t see this, he’s incapable of leadership on this or any other issue.

I’m done with him. Let’s find somebody else before the RNC chair’s deficiencies sabotage the party’s chances of taking over needed majorities in the House and Senate this fall.