July 08, 2010 07:25 PM UTC

Steele Resurfaces Under Wadhams' Wing

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• by: Colorado Pols

9NEWS has live video of embattled Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, appearing despite cancellations earlier in the week at the opening of the new GOP headquarters in Greenwood Village–AP reminds helpfully:

The outspoken chairman’s appearance in Colorado  will be his first since he came under fire for calling the 9-year-old conflict in Afghanistan a mistaken “war of Obama’s choosing.” Steele later issued a statement stressing his support for U.S. troops.

Westword’s Michael Roberts caught up with Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams, and asked him about Steele’s visit–a good idea, considering?

“He’s our national chairman, and we’re always pleased to have the national chairman in Colorado,” Wadhams stresses. “But having said that, I strongly disagree with him about Afghanistan. This isn’t Obama’s war. It’s America’s war against terrorism. So what he said was not factual and not appropriate. I don’t have any agreement with him at all in his characterization of the Afghanistan situation.”

At the same time, Wadhams sees this gaffe as less significant than Vice President Joe Biden’s cheerleading for the war in Iraq, a country he once wanted to partition, and the return to Afghanistan (and to favor) of General David Petraeus, who didn’t always get kudos from Democratics during the years when he served at the pleasure of President George W. Bush…

“I will tell you, these incidents are getting tiresome, because they’re diversions we don’t need right now.”

Nevertheless, here he is.