The GOP threatens to take its ball and go home

DeleyanLee · Aug 5, 2013

At least that's how this reads to me when I see that the RNC threatens to shut out CNN and NBC because they're doing Clinton documentaries.

In letters addressed to NBC Chairman Robert Greenblatt and CNN President Jeff Zucker on Aug. 5, Priebus warned that RNC members intend to vote on a resolution at their party-wide meeting later this month to shut out the networks from partnering with the party on Republican primary debates if they do not cancel the programs.

Seriously? We expect children to get along better. At least, we did when I was a child.

cornflake · Aug 5, 2013

I'm trying to imagine the reaction if the DNC threatened Fox over their programming.

It's 2013. She was Secretary of State.

Didn't CNN do a Romney documentary prior to the last election? He hadn't held any national position.

nighttimer · Aug 5, 2013

Is Reince Priebus that afraid of Hillary Clinton? :scared:

Wimp.

robjvargas · Aug 5, 2013

As a libertarian/conservative, I sort of understand. It feels like CNN and NBC are in a constant state of... not war... confrontation... that's closer, with anything to right of Nancy Pelosi.

That's tiring. Tiresome.

But this isn't the resolution. *Even if* this is a thinly veiled attempt to hype Hillary Clinton, the answer is not to shut our eyes and ears. Nor is it to throw another in a long line of fits over the bias of these two networks.

By the way, I am not claiming either of the two items in red above. They are both intended as statements of a perception, not a truth (alleged or actual).

Kylabelle · Aug 5, 2013

Personally, I decided a while ago that most of this is pure theater.

I do feel that the documentary as described is likely an attempt to "position" Ms Clinton in precedence over other potential Democrats who might be presidential material. So much as I hate to admit it, the Republican argument has a point. Sort of....

:popcorn:

robjvargas · Aug 5, 2013

Maybe, Kylabelle. But cornflake has a point as well. She was the Secretary of State, and one of the most widely traveled ever.

I'm not as enamored of her as some others may be, but I can't deny that there's valid material for a documentary.

Vince524 · Aug 5, 2013

cornflake said:
I'm trying to imagine the reaction if the DNC threatened Fox over their programming.

It's 2013. She was Secretary of State.

Didn't CNN do a Romney documentary prior to the last election? He hadn't held any national position.

If I remember correctly, the DNC doesn't participate in any debate involving Fox.

cornflake · Aug 5, 2013

Vince524 said:
If I remember correctly, the DNC doesn't participate in any debate involving Fox.

For good reason - it'd be like arguing with the op-ed page of a wacky paper.

little_e · Aug 5, 2013

Meanwhile, unemployment is still rampant.

StormChord · Aug 5, 2013

little_e said:
Meanwhile, unemployment is still rampant.

That's for a different thread.

little_e · Aug 5, 2013

StormChord said:
That's for a different thread.

Oh, no. There's a connection, I'm quite certain, between our leaders being completely incompetent at doing anything but immature power-games and the country having slowly devolved into shambles.

redfalcon · Aug 5, 2013

little_e said:
Oh, no. There's a connection, I'm quite certain, between our leaders being completely incompetent at doing anything but immature power-games and the country having slowly devolved into shambles.

I disagree with your assessment that they are incompetent. We seem to be exactly where they want us, and they keep getting elected. They must be doing something right.

nighttimer · Aug 5, 2013

little_e said:
Oh, no. There's a connection, I'm quite certain, between our leaders being completely incompetent at doing anything but immature power-games and the country having slowly devolved into shambles.

Who said Reince Priebus was one of "our leaders?" I know I didn't vote for him. He's simply a partisan looking for any partisan advantage he can get. Priebus is scared shitless of Hillary Clinton and maybe he should be.

His macho man act amuses me as much as it does Charles Pierce:

Obvious anagram Reince Priebus, figurehead high priest of the Silly Party, has decided to butch himself up again.
"If you have not agreed to pull this programming prior to the start of the RNC's Summer Meeting on August 14, I will seek a binding vote of the RNC stating that the committee will neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor."
In other words, if you don't kill a major project involving the biography of the most famous woman in the world and starring a very bankable movie star, we will refuse to let you participate in Wingnutnado, the ratings blockbuster featuring Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Peter King, Scott Walker, and Tara Reid. Wait. Maybe not Tara Reid. Anyway, Reince is never more adorable than when he pretends he is an Important Person Of Influence. Really. It's like watching a toddler in a Mark Hanna suit.

Filigree · Aug 5, 2013

Even after the Romney Debacle, many Republicans are still living in the bubble. Then again, it keeps working for them: they keep having obstructionist temper tantrums, Congress was at an 8% approval rating the last time I looked, and the rest of the country suffers. What is the political equivalent of a bucket of icewater?

Sad thing is, I am not that liberal on many points. I'm Independent now, but I was Republican for most of my life. I will never be Democrat. I have softened a little on some things, but my party went right-of-right revival-tent batshit and drove me away.

I'd say let them take their ball and run home. The networks should be quivering in fear, considering the quality of the digital content I've been seeing lately. Who watches FOX? By and large, old white people. Who watches The Young Turks? Twenty-somethings.

jennontheisland · Aug 5, 2013

Good. The less press they get, the better.

clintl · Aug 5, 2013

"If you have not agreed to pull this programming prior to the start of the RNC's Summer Meeting on August 14, I will seek a binding vote of the RNC stating that the committee will neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor."

Sure, threaten them with turning down free publicity and airtime for the candidates. That will show them. I'm sure NBC and CNN have plenty of alternative programming available.

Vince524 · Aug 5, 2013

Filigree said:
Who watches FOX? By and large, old white people.

Not just.

little_e · Aug 5, 2013

nighttimer said:
Who said Reince Priebus was one of "our leaders?" I know I didn't vote for him. He's simply a partisan looking for any partisan advantage he can get. Priebus is scared shitless of Hillary Clinton and maybe he should be.

His macho man act amuses me as much as it does Charles Pierce:

Just because I didn't vote for him doesn't mean there aren't people in this country who don't follow him or aren't affected by his actions. The Republicans have plenty of power to get things done--or not--as they chose.

Don · Aug 5, 2013

redfalcon said:
I disagree with your assessment that they are incompetent. We seem to be exactly where they want us, and they keep getting elected. They must be doing something right.

Yep, and this is a perfect example of the sort of partisan squabble they manufacture and promote to keep us at each others' throats and paying little attention to their true bipartisanship; their bipartisan efforts to turn over ever-larger portions of our economy to the one percent, their bipartisan efforts to restrict personal choice and micro-manage ever larger portions of society, and their bipartisan promotion of empire and the establishment of a "security" state through fear-mongering and othering.

nighttimer · Aug 5, 2013

little_e said:
Just because I didn't vote for him doesn't mean there aren't people in this country who don't follow him or aren't affected by his actions. The Republicans have plenty of power to get things done--or not--as they chose.

Nobody voted for Reince Priebus. At least not on a ballot because he's just some moron who runs the Republican National Committee. Nobody follows him or is affected by his actions.

And I'm not talking about Twitter followers.

But this is a game both parties know how to play though the reasons for these boycotts have been different.

Six long years ago, the Democratic candidates for president declared war on Fox News. The channel had partnered with the Congressional Black Caucus to put on a debate. The party’s online activist base, growing every month, started asking Democrats to skip that one. John Edwards went first, then Barack Obama, then Hillary Clinton, then—oh, the indignity—Bill Richardson! The debate was canceled faster than a Rob Schneider sitcom.

But the death rattle lasted for weeks. The Democratic campaigns were explicit: They canceled, in the words of an Edwards spokesman, because “there’s just no reason for Democrats to give Fox a platform to advance the right-wing agenda while pretending they’re objective.” Republicans and some media watchers warned that the diss would dog the party. “Any candidate for high office from either party who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake about journalists,” said Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes.

I'm fine if the Republican presidential candidates only debate on Fox News. I don't watch Fox News and I don't vote for Republican presidential candidates. Who cares if I can't watch politicians I have no interest in voting for yapping at each other?

The presidential debates are the only debates that really matter and there's nothing Priebus can do to stop a Republican presidential candidate from participating. Especially if the Democratic presidential candidate is Hillary Clinton.

blacbird · Aug 5, 2013

nighttimer said:
The presidential debates are the only debates that really matter

1. They aren't debates. They are theater.

2. They matter only in the public perception of who was cooler and prettier. And that ain't inconsequential in a Presidential election. What is actually said by the candidates is as consequential as dawn fog at a cloudless sunrise.

caw

robeiae · Oct 1, 2013

Both deals are now cancelled.

The CNN documentary from Charles Ferguson:

I would have loved to explore all this. But when I approached people for interviews, I discovered that nobody, and I mean nobody, was interested in helping me make this film. Not Democrats, not Republicans -- and certainly nobody who works with the Clintons, wants access to the Clintons, or dreams of a position in a Hillary Clinton administration. Not even journalists who want access, which can easily be taken away. I even sensed potential difficulty in licensing archival footage from CBN (Pat Robertson) and from Fox. After approaching well over a hundred people, only two persons who had ever dealt with Mrs. Clinton would agree to an on-camera interview, and I suspected that even they would back out.

This, of course, was the real consequence, and probably the real intent, of the announcements by the RNC, Philippe Reines, and David Brock. Neither political party wanted the film made. After painful reflection, I decided that I couldn't make a film of which I would be proud. And so I'm cancelling. (Not because of any pressure from CNN -- quite the contrary.) It's a victory for the Clintons, and for the money machines that both political parties have now become.

The NBC miniseries that would supposedly have starred Diane Lane as Hillary Clinton:

NBC offered little rationale for its decision to drop the Clinton miniseries, which was to have starred Academy Award winner Diane Lane as the former first lady, senator and secretary of State.

“After reviewing and prioritizing our slate of movie/mini-series development, we’ve decided that we will no longer continue developing the Hillary Clinton mini-series,” an NBC official said in a statement to The Hill.

The GOP threatens to take its ball and go home

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