Say What ‽
I checked the calendar to be sure, but we are one day shy of 9 months since we last elected the President. That means that there are 3 years and 3 months to go before we do it again. Given the reality that the attention span of the American public is on a par with a kitten in a knitting circle, I was more than slightly taken aback by what the Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus, did today.
It would seem that CNN is making a movie, and NBC is making a documentary about Hillary Clinton. This hasn’t been a secret as these things take time. Both were somewhat stunned to be informed that if they continued with these projects, the RNC would boycott the networks. The media companies were given 9 days to respond.
This certainly indicates where the RNC comes down on censorship issues. Neither network can cancel these projects without taking a loss which is not something that corporations generally do.
My advice is to continue the projects and honor the RNC boycott by not asking any Republicans to violate it by appearing on any of their shows. Hosts can explain at the beginning of every show how much they wanted a Republican point of view, but the RNC won’t permit it. Republican candidates can be represented by an empty chair at any debates.
4 comments
No politician or political group ever won a battle with a noted journalist or major news org. That the GOP would even want to try is proof of the Republicans’ full-blown bat-shit insanity.
I look forward to the walk-back. The later it happens, the more fun it will be…
The Prime Minister of Australia just called their next election for September 7th, and that’s for the whole ball of wax, while we are expected to put up with almost 4 years of campaigning. It’s insane, and should be illegal.
These people seem totally terrified of Hillary Clinton. If she has a grandchild born in the next couple of years, she isn’t really going to want to hit the campaign trail. She was in constant motion at State, so getting back into harness is not going to be as attractive as it was in 2008. Does she really want to put up with all of the crap again? I’m not convinced that she does, and I don’t see her making a decision for some time.
There’s a saying, “never pick a fight with someone who buys paper by the ton and ink by the barrel.” Even if you win, you lose.
Plus, as someone CBS News was interviewing this evening pointed out, the networks don’t make any money off the debates. They do them because they sort of have to, or else be called un-American, but threatening to yank the debates away from NBC and CNN is sort of like threatening them with the comfy chair. It just doesn’t quite instill fear and trembling in the hearts of network executives, methinks…
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
That’s true, Badtux. Even after Citizens United we haven’t quite reached the point of “The Exxon Presidential Candidates Debates”.