MSNBC's Debate Debacle

Dennis Kucinich can sound like a tinfoil-hat conspiracy nut when he talks about how Big Media will do anything to keep him out of the White House. But today, thanks to the comic maladroitness of Big Media, Mr. Tinfoil has a point.

NBC News got slapped down by a Nevada judge yesterday after trying to limit tonight's Democratic debate to the three front-runners.

The network says it will appeal, but it doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. Why? Because tonight's debate was originally meant to include four candidates -- back when Bill Richardson was still in the race. After he dropped out, NBC News invited Kucinich to take his place, then rescinded the invitation -- making it utterly clear that the decision had nothing to do with controlling the format of the debate, and everything to do with the network's summary judgment on the electability of a short, UFO-seeing vegan.

I'm on record arguing that networks aren't automatically wrong to limit the number of bodies on stage during presidential debates. This is not the way to do it.

UPDATE: Media Mob is all over this story.