Looks like its Blazing Saddles for the GOP.

For years a common line of attack from democrats has been to call the Republicans "Hostage Takers" in that every time their is a negotiation the Republicans take a political issue hostage and threaten to do away with it unless they get their way. And hell its been a fairly effective strategy, even if the GOP objects to the name

Well it appears the GOP has a new hostage.......however this time they appear to have chosen poorly

You see this time their hostage taking looks a little something like this (and as you can see from the clips title, the youtube account I pulled this from doesnt think its the first time the GOP hostage taking has gone this way) :

See the problem is this, the black Sheriff holding a gun to his own head is played by RNC chairman Reince Priebus, and well everyone else is the white town folk.

See Yesterday Mr. Priebus had a written a letter of demands for CNN and NBC, pull shows he doesnt like by the end of next week or the GOP wont hold primaries on your network.

Now to be fair, he's not objecting because he is not a fan of say, The Voice, or a show like that. The shows he wants pulled are pretty specific.  Both networks are currently working on content about former First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. In the case of NBC, they have a 4 episode mini series coming, and CNN actually has a biographical movie they are releasing into theaters.

Now to be honest, none of that is all that weird, CBS did a series called "The Reagans", and the movie DC 9/11 (W.). CNN's parent company did a series on John Adams, and a TV movie about Teddy Roosevelt, and an actual movie about JFK. ABC's parent helped produce Nixon  NBC, ABC and FOX all teamed up to do "Crawford" (W.)  ect ect ect.

In other-words, just like sex, politics sells. And pretty much every major news network is owned by a massive parent company, all of whom have at least one entertainment branch. Thing is, Mr. Priebus doesnt seem to understand that.

In fact in his letters Priebus claimed that this is an unprecedented (remember like most republican leaders Priebus was in a coma until 2009, and only watches FOX so has never heard of any of the other presidential mini series)attack and "thinly veiled attempts to put a thumb on the scale for the 2016 election" that would also damage the networks credibility as unbiased.

Which of course led to the following response from NBC, underlying the very point about massive corporations that Priebus shockingly doesnt understand

"NBC News is completely independent of NBC Entertainment, and has no involvement in this project."

CNN went a similar route in the first part of their response.

"CNN Films, a division of CNN Worldwide, commissioned a documentary about Hillary Clinton earlier this year, It is expected to premiere in 2014 with a theatrical run prior to airing on CNN."

Basically in short, both news networks are trying to tell Priebus "Dude you know this isnt actually US right? I mean most people kinda know how super companies work....."

So basically yea, Priebus is threatening the wrong people.

CNN actually went on to elaborate on some of the other mistakes Priebus made here.
"This documentary will be a non-fiction look at the life of a former First Lady and Secretary of State. Instead of making premature decisions about a project that is in the very early stages of development and months from completion, we would encourage the members of the Republican National Committee to reserve judgment until they know more."

In other-words CNN is saying that its even possible their film wont even paint Mrs. Clinton in a flattering light, and maybe the RNC would be better served waiting until they know, and not you know preemptively shitting their pants at the mere mention of her name.

And honestly, the fact that they do is kinda telling. I mean either Mr. Priebus and the rest of the GOP already thinks that the GOP candidate in 2016 will suck so badly they will lose to Hilary no matter what, even with bad press, which is a great show of faith in his own party. Or  Mr. Priebus has such respect and admiration for Mrs. Clinton that he couldnt possibly see anything negative about her. Which raises the question as to why any of these guys are actually Republicans? I mean you'd think they'd jump parties just for the chance to vote for her.

And actually to be honest, that second point might have some truth to is. After all Priebus did site in both letters a list of candidates he's concerned about:

“This special treatment is unfair to the candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2016 who might compete against Secretary Clinton (including Vice President Biden; Govs. O’Malley, Cuomo and Hickenlooper; Sen. Klobuchar and others) and to the Republican nominee, should Clinton compete in the general election."

Note that everyone he listed is a democrat, and they got 98% of his concern......

But all of this only sets up the hostage situation, we still havnt gotten to the gun to the head problem.

So what happens if the networks dont pull/cancel these projects before the deadline? well as Mr. Priebus said  “If you have not agreed to pull this programming prior to the start of the RNC’s summer meeting on Aug. 14, I will seek a binding vote of the RNC stating that the committee will neither partner with you in 2015 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor.”

So there you go. Priebus has the gun to his own head. The problem is, unlike the nice white folks in the movie, who may be racist but are also nice enough they dont want anyone killed, NBC and CNN arnt putting the guns down.

as CNN put it "Should they decide not to participate in debates on CNN, we would find it curious, as limiting their debate participation seems to be the ultimate disservice to voters.”

So Priebus is now forced to pull the trigger. Which could mean any number of things

1) The rest of the RNC laughs in his face when he calls for that vote, he turns himself into a joke and not even his own organization takes him seriously anymore. So yea, career suicide.

2) the RNC gets completely cut out of the debate process, as Republican candidates work out deals with each other and the networks on their own.

Of course hosting a debate is expensive, so only the rich candidates who also have many many rich friends would be able to participate.

A rich candidate with rich friends....what could possibly go wrong? its gotta work 47% of the time.

3) There just arnt any GOP primary debates. Which means a basically unknown and untested person would face off for the first time on the national stage against a debate hardened democrat. This assumes of course the RNC would allow the republican candidate to actually appear in the debates. Ironically the likely refusal to allow that too would actually turn the debates into infomercials for the other side, ala 1980 when President Carter decided not to show up 

Nationally unknown and untested person on the national stage for the first time? Why does that sound familiar?

Also isnt the whole reason according to the RNC the dude on the right lost because he couldnt compete for press coverage due to the democrats having more debates well after he locked up the nomination? 

So yea, basically 2 and 3 combined or separate, make it that much easier for the Democrats to win, no matter who the nominee is they will either be running against an out of touch super rich guy or some shuck no one has ever heard of/heard anything from.

I mean I guess its nice that Reince Priebus is so concerned about the Democrats having a level playing field and getting the best candidate that he is willing to basically hand them the election as a show of support. You'd think other republicans might object to that though.

Nor actually is the impact on the Republican party the only stupid part about this.

See again the white folks in the movies put their guns down presumably because they are both a little stupid and didnt really want anyone to die. As I said they are nice people.

But you know what doesnt generate huge rating or huge advertiser revenues? Political Debates.

Basically what Priebus is threatening the networks with is several nights of primetime television that wont be preempted by low rated political bullshit.

As the old expression goes "Only please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me into the briar patch."

In the last primary NBC and CNN hosted 11 of the 20 debates, so thats basically 5 to 6 nights each of primetime profit Priebus is forcing them to take. Somehow I dont think they will mind.

Furthermore it also gives the Democrats basically the pick of any night they want, whenever they want, to host their primaries. I mean its not like any other party is going to be using that air time.....

So yea, more coverage and more options for the Democrats (Again)

So to recap, Basically Priebus was counting on the networks to be as dumb as the white folks in blazing saddles. That isnt gonna happen. So if he pulls the trigger he loses and everyone gets everything they want. Way to go.

Which means he needs to put the gun down and release the hostage/himself. Except even that has a problem. His credibility and the credibility of the whole RNC and by extension the Republican Party, is kinda on the line here.

If he puts the gun away, no one will believe the next bluff. Which again is doubly problematic. Taking Hostages has worked decently for the GOP so far......but only because the other side tends to believe they really will follow through. If Priebus doesnt, why should anyone believe the next hostage threat?

Or for that matter, why would his own party believe him if, as has happened, he has to threaten to cut a candidates funding off for saying something stupid.

I mean he thinks guys like Todd Akin are a hassle to control NOW, imagine what they will be like if they realize he never actually means it.

So yea, congratulations to Mr. Preibus, he has managed to get awesome amounts of attention for these two Hillary projects, and set himself, and maybe even the RNC up, to be humiliated.

That takes special talent. I finally see what the RNC sees in this guy. (well other then the fact that if you remove the vowels from his name it spells RNC PR BS)

Actually wait no. I can see why the DNC loves this guy....but I have no idea why the RNC actually gave this guy a second term to lead them, not if hes really this bad at hostage taking and not drawing attention to things you dont want people to know about.