Surprise, Surprise: Daily Kos Founder Says On Primary Debates, Reince Priebus Has a Point

August 10th, 2013 3:30 PM

Quite a few Kossacks have weighed in on RNC chair Reince Priebus's pledge to withhold 2016 GOP presidential-primary debates from CNN and NBC if those networks don't scrub their planned Hillary Clinton projects.
 
The most noteworthy DKos post on the topic came on Wednesday from none other than site founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas, who approves in principle of Priebus's efforts.

After sniping that "Republican primary debates are bad for their party...Their problem is that they're crazy, and the less they remind America, the better they are," Moulitsas asserted that just as Democrats "revolted in 2008 when Fox News wanted to host a Democratic primary debate in Nevada, it makes sense for Republicans to seek friendly (and partisan!) news outlets for their primary tussles." Moulitsas recommended:

'Have Fox drive the GOP debates. MSNBC could do the Democratic ones. Imagine how awesome it would be to have Rachel Maddow helm our party's debates, focusing on issues of actual relevance to base voters (and not whatever bullshit is driving the Sunday morning talk shows that week). Imagine how entertaining it would be to have Rush Limbaugh moderate on the GOP side. Or Ann Coulter.

Sure, Limbaugh might spend all his time asking questions about Benghazi, but hey, that's what their candidates want to talk about and it's what their base wants to hear. So let them focus on the issues important to them, and we can do the same on our side...

On Friday, DKos blogger "cc" objected to comments by NBC news personalities that a Hillary entertainment miniseries would cause headaches for the network's news division:

Are Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd bitching about NBC Entertainment's programming because they are afraid that all the congressional ass kissing they've been doing over the years will be interrupted?...

Chuck Todd proclaims on his twitter feed that he is a "Political Junkie." Someone should tell Chuck Todd that being a "Political Junkie" does not make a person a journalist just like being a Heroin Junkie does not make a person a pharmacist...'

And "cc" is on the same page with Moulitsas as far as the Republicans' central challenge is concerned:

Priebus is admitting that the mini-series is just an "excuse" [and that] the real problem with public GOP debates are the batshit crazy GOP candidates themselves...