the GOP starting to get it?

Good news-- in Michael Steele's candor, in promoting his new book-- from USA Today...

Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele offers a simple explanation for why the party all too often lost touch with typical Americans since the Ronald Reagan era: "We screwed up," he claims in a new book offering a blueprint for the party's resurgence.

That "we" includes the last two Republican presidents, George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush, and the most recent Republican candidate for president, Sen. John McCain.

In Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda...

More surprising, the Republican chairman directly or indirectly criticizes:

--President George H.W. Bush for raising taxes two years after President Ronald Reagan left office...

--President George W. Bush for not vetoing any spending bills during his first five years in office. He calls Bush and other Republicans "enablers for big government" and derides the Bush administration's Troubled Asset Relief Program as "a massive government slush fund."

--McCain, the party's 2008 presidential nominee, for backing censorship of political speech through the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law....

--Republican lawmakers in general, who allowed spending to rise from 2001 to 2004, and went along with TARP and McCain-Feingold.

One Republican who escapes Steele's intraparty criticism is former Alaska governor Sarah Palin...