I stand in awe and amazement at the announcement that CNN will release all of their Presidential debate coverage “without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate.” As far as I can tell, that means that anyone is allowed to post pieces of it on the ‘net, cut and remix it, publicly broadcast it… all of the things that TV and movie companies always refuse.

There has to be a catch somewhere, but so far, I haven’t seen it. I hesitate to believe that any public company would, or even could, do anything that might possibly prevent them from squeezing every last squealing penny from anything they might be able to claim belongs to them, just because it’s the right thing to do. It goes against everything that Big Business has stood for for the past quarter of a century.

Then again… the Republican Party is in major hot water with the public on all sorts of topics, from the Iraq war to Bush’s totalitarian tactics at home. At this point, they’d probably come off as a poor second in a debate with an Eliza program. Maybe someone left-leaning at CNN thinks that this will help sink them. Or maybe CNN just sees a major bloodbath coming, figuratively speaking, and thinks that this will gain them more in free publicity and public good-will than they’re likely to ever see from the debate clips in revenues… if so, they’re almost certainly correct, since I have no doubt that their logo will be prominently displayed on all of their footage.

Whew! My hard-won cynicism, having repelled the vicious surprise attack, is secure once again. 😉