I understand why RNC Chairman Reince Priebus is unhappy about NBC airing a Hillary biopic, although I suspect the main damage it will cause is to afflict the nation with yet more terrible prime time television. It will take some awfully talented fiction writers to write a made-for-TV movie that makes Hillary Clinton seem like an interesting human being, and if what we've seen from NBC in recent years is any indication, they don't have any such talent there.
But I think Priebus has played this wrong by threatening NBC and CNN (which is planning a Hillary documentary for some reason) with non-cooperation on presidential debates unless they pull their planned Hillary propaganda:
“It’s appalling to know executives at major networks like NBC and CNN who have donated to Democrats and Hillary Clinton have taken it upon themselves to be Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives,” said Chairman Priebus. “Their actions to promote Secretary Clinton are disturbing and disappointing. I hope Americans will question the credibility of these networks and that NBC and CNN will reconsider their partisan actions and cancel these political ads masked as unbiased entertainment. If they 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 stating that the RNC will neither partner with these networks in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates they sponsor.”
Why doesn't Priebus just use the situation as an excuse to pull the plug on the debates altogether, and not look back? Media-moderated debates are a complete joke. The questions are either dumb and shallow or so loaded with liberal bias that there's no chance a Republican candidate can make a reasonable case for his positions or qualifications.
Journalists moderate these debates the same way they develop stories: They are trying to manufacture an eye-catching headline, a "moment" or a gaffe-fueled controversy. The moderators try to make themselves the stars of the show, and what the general public often doesn't realize is that they crave the pats on the back and atta-boys from fellow liberal journalists for setting just the right trap, or "really nailing" whatever Republican candidate the media hates most at the moment.
The only thing you do when you have endless debates between Republican candidates is set traps for them all to fall into. I would prefer no debates at all to what we saw in the last cycle. I suspect most of the candidates would too.
NBC and CNN will surely go ahead and air their Hillary-worshiping specials no matter what the RNC thinks, and my personal sense is that it will backfire. The public often misses the inherent bias in a 30-second broadcast news report, but subject them to several nights worth of shameless glorification of this very unimpressive woman, and I suspect anyone watching who is not among the Hillary sycophants will not take long to recognize they are being propagandized.
Let the media go ahead and make it official: They desparately want Hillary to be the next president and they won't even hold back putting shameless propaganda on the air for the sake of some meager claim of objectivity. We know what they are. They air this crap and they admit it. Then the GOP can (or should) spend the next three years going to war with them, because it's clear for anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear that there is no working wtih them. They are official house organs of the Democratic Party and of the Hillary campaign. Period.
