As Michael Scott, the boss at a paper company’s branch office in Scranton on NBC’s “The Office,” Steve Carrell, a “Daily Show” alum, plays an incompetent egomaniac with perfect pitch. In scripted dialogue, Michael Scott says things like this:

Michael Scott: The most sacred thing I do is care… Today I am in charge of picking a great new healthcare plan. Right? That’s what this is all about. Does that make me their doctor? Um, yes. Like a specialist.

And:

Michael Scott: It’s simply beyond words. It’s incalculable.

And:

Michael Scott: Would I rather be feared or loved? Um… Easy, both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.

Now, in an interview with CNN, Michael Steele, the real-life chairman of the Republican Party, has delivered a set of quotes that make the self-deluded rants of fictional Michael Scott pale in comparison:

STEELE: I’m very introspective about things. I don’t do — I’m a cause-and-effect kind of guy. So if I do something, there’s a reason for it, even — it may look like a mistake, a gaffe. There is a rationale, there’s a logic behind it.

CNN: Even with the current events and news?

STEELE: Yes.

CNN: A rationale behind Rush and all of that stuff. You want to share with us?

STEELE: Sure. I want to see what the landscape looks like. I want to see who yells the loudest. I want to know who says they’re with me but really isn’t.

CNN: How does that help you?

STEELE: It helps me understand my position on the chess board. It helps me understand, you know, where the enemy camp is and where those who are inside the tent are.

CNN: It’s all strategic.

STEELE: It’s all strategic.

See how this works? When Steele makes a mistake, it’s not really a mistake. He makes these gaffes — including, presumably, this one — on purpose. That makes him, infallible.

Speaking of delusions of grandeur, Steele was also asked if he would consider running for president:

STEELE: I’d consider it if the opportunity were there and it was right. But, you know, God has a way of revealing stuff to you and making it real for you through others. If that’s part of the plan, it’ll be the plan.

We may have this conversation in eight, 10, 12 years and you’ll sit back and you’ll play the tape back and say oh look at what you said. But it will be because that’s where God wants me to be at that time.

Honest to God, I do not sit — you cannot plan this. There are too many moving parts to plan this. You just cannot plan it.

And you just cannot make this stuff up.

With “Parks & Recreation,” the spin-off of “The Office,” said to be DOA, NBC should look into a producing a reality show starring Michael Steele. He’s a natural and would produce boffo ratings as the nation tunes in each week to see what in the world he’ll say next.