Their call.

The head of the Republican Party threatened Monday to cut out CNN and NBC from the GOP presidential primary debates if the networks do not shelve their plans to air lengthy features on Hillary Clinton — who is widely expected to be a Democratic candidate in the 2016 election.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus accused both networks of trying to put “a thumb on the scales” of the 2016 race with programming he claimed would be tantamount to an “in-kind donation” to the Clinton campaign.

[snip]

In a written statement, Priebus said if the networks don’t meet his demands, he will seek a “binding vote” at the upcoming Aug. 14 RNC meeting declaring that the party “will neither partner with these networks in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates they sponsor.”

I happen to have a real problem with Priebus’s decision, here. It’s a touch squishy: I mean, the chairman seems to be suggesting that he’d still let the RNC credential NBC/CNN flunkies if their parent companies don’t abandon their brave new roles as Hillary ’16 harbingers. This is no time to go wobbly.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: You may safely assume that I – and a lot of my compatriots – will not be unhappy to see our 2016 debate calendar hacked down to something that’s actually useful. By any means necessary.