Get On the Preibus

Republican Party boss Reince Preibus has made it clear to independent television networks that if they offend the Republican party by planning programming that profiles the leading star in Democratic party politics other than President Obama, they can count themselves out of taking part in debates for the 2016 Republican presidential primary season.

The noted voter suppression advocate with the spell-checker-unfriendly name is angry at NBC for producing a four-night miniseries about the life of Hillary Clinton (with Diane Lane in the prized role) and at CNN for planning a documentary about the former Secretary of State in light of Mrs. Clinton's possible presidential ambitions for 2016.  Preibus sees this as an obvious anti-Republican bias on the part of NBC and CNN, and he's vowed to exclude reporters from NBC, its sister cable news channel MSNBC, and CNN if they dare celebrate Hillary. He wants journalists who will help the Republican party - as if helping one party or the other were the primary (no pun intended) objective of any journalist.

Preibus's reasoning - if it can be called that - is fundamentally flawed.  First, the miniseries NBC is producing is an artistic, not a journalistic, program.  It will show Hillary Clinton as directors, actors and screenwriters see her, and her politics are only part and parcel of her life story. Second, how does Preibus know the CNN documentary on Mrs. Clinton will be favorable? For all he knows, it may be the work of a producer who can't stand her.

Keeping certain reporters out of the Republican presidential primary debates for 2016 is only going to make the audience for such debates smaller, especially if CNN, NBC, or MSNBC can't even broadcast them. Maybe that's what Preibus really wants, so the party's more reactionary presidential hopefuls will be less likely to get caught making a major gaffe to make the party look bad (look also for fewer debates to lessen the chances of that happening).  But it won't allow the Republicans to expand their constituency with a positive message, assuming they can come up with one.  They'll keep preaching to the choir and lose in 2016 to Hillary, Andrew Cuomo, or even Maryland governor Martin O'Malley, at this rate.

If I were Preibus, I wouldn't worry about the impact of those Hillary Clinton programs.  Not too many people watch NBC and CNN anyway.  Although, he's certainly giving so much free publicity to both the miniseries and the documentary, enough people might just tune in.

And if the CNN documentary in particular is critical enough of Mrs. Clinton, that might actually help the Republicans.