Washington is getting a case of the vapors over Michael Steele’s new book, Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda.  The Republican establishment heaped coals over Steele’s head in a front-page Washington Post article for getting the GOP off message in the face of what should be a historic midterm rebuke of the governing party.

I have not yet read Steele’s book, but I have read excerpts and heard the RNC chairman defend himself tenaciously on Sunday morning television.  Steele writes and defends provocative statements like: “The disparity between our rhetoric and our action grew until our credibility snapped.  It wasn’t the fault of our ideals.  It was the failure of our leaders to live up to them.”

This kind of language–far from upsetting rank-and-file GOPers–is precisely what the party faithful hunger to hear, and precisely what will ensure that they go to the polls in November.  Republicans want their leaders to acknowledge that “we got off track”–on spending, on the mismanagement of two wars, on big government–and that “we get it.”

Steele is right to vigorously make this case.  This is not a football game.  Republican voters want to know that cheering for their team will actually mean something.