'Reince Priebus, MSNBC Slayer'

In late February of 2009, then-Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele sat there and took it on the air at CNN, when Time-Warner-CNN-HBO spokesman D.L. Hughley referred to the previous year’s Republican National Convention as “literally look[ing] like Nazi Germany.”  His successor as RNC chairman, fortunately, is much more willing to push back against the boilerplate slurs of the MSM, Jonathan Strong writes at Big Government:

At 8:06 p.m. that night, the official Twitter account for MSNBC had just suggested conservatives would “hate” a Cheerios television spot featuring a young, biracial family.

Priebus saw the tweet right after it was published. His mind raced through a series of recent controversies from the network–host Melissa Harris-Perry mocking Mitt Romney for his adopted black grandchild, a lewd attack on Sarah Palin from the now-fired Martin Bashir, and an awkward attempt to score political points at the expense of a war hero in the audience at the State of the Union.

“I thought, ‘something’s gotta be done with this,’” Priebus said in a phone interview Tuesday. He quickly pinged his chief of staff, Mike Shields, and communications director, Sean Spicer, with an email. The three agreed Priebus would call MSNBC president Phil Griffin first thing tomorrow.

The next morning at 9:00 a.m., Priebus told Griffin’s assistant he was calling about “a tweet.”

“I’m certain they knew what I was referring to,” he laughs.

Bravo to Mr. Priebus, and much more please. But as I’m sure he well knows, if he really wants to push back against the institutional racism of MSNBC, much more pressure needs to be applied to the cable channel’s parent network and both channels’ corporate owners.