The NYTimes lances Michael Steele

The NYTimes takes on Michael Steele and the vision they show is not a pretty one, lightweight, thin resume, scents of scandal, only where he is by the color of his skin....

And they more or less bracket the article with these two sections.

Mr. Steele is the party’s first African-American chairman, his election a response to a history-making Democratic president. But now his performance is raising questions: Does he have a strategy, or is he simply saying whatever comes to mind?....

And as tempestuous as the past month has been, Mr. Steele said in the interview, Republicans should get ready for more. “I’m very spontaneous,” he said, comparing working with him to riding a roller coaster without knowing when the next dip or curve might come.

“Be prepared; you have no idea,” he said. “Just buckle up and get ready to go.”

It's ugly. When "the paper of record" casts this image, it just serves to make him a lighter weight than he is already perceived to be.

(And, yes, I know that getting trashed by the NYTimes doesn't hurt him in the GOP, but it does hurt him in the influence game in Washington, and that's at least half his job.)