Spiked

spike ¹ |spīk|
_noun

1 a thin, pointed piece of metal, wood, or another rigid material.

• a large stout nail, esp. one used to fasten a rail to a railroad tie.

• each of several metal points set into the sole of an athletic shoe to prevent slipping.
• ( spikes) a pair of athletic shoes with such metal points.
• short for spike heel .
• informal a hypodermic needle.

2 a sharp increase in the magnitude or concentration of something : the oil price spike.

• Electronics a pulse of very short duration in which a rapid increase in voltage is followed by a rapid decrease.

_verb

1 impale on or pierce with a sharp point : she spiked another oyster.

• Baseball injure (a player) with the spikes on one's shoes.
• (of a newspaper editor) reject (a story) by or as if by filing it on a spike : the editors deemed the article in bad taste and spiked it. ...

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You may recall a year ago that ABC's docudrama The Path to 911 was almost not aired due to protests (by Guess Who) that it would be unfair so close to the critical '06 elections. At the last minute, Clinton operatives did succeed in forcing some critical edits to rewrite history, so to speak, and it did broadcast on September 10th and 11th, 2006.

Many expected a DVD release by Christmas, or February...or April...or June. But ABC has refused to release it--even over the protests of the company that produced it, UHP Productions, and all involved in the making of it.

So the question is why does ABC refuse to publish? This punishes UHP and the writer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, director, David L. Cunningham, actors Donnie Wahlberg and Harvey Keitel, et al. More importantly, it is a loss of revenue to ABC and its shareholders. [Might there be a possible class action on the part of ABC shareholders?]

The answer to this question may be somehow related to this:

Clinton campaign kills negative story

By: Ben Smith
Sep 24, 2007 03:43 PM EST
Updated: September 24, 2007 09:39 PM EST

Early this summer, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for president learned that the men’s magazine GQ was working on a story the campaign was sure to hate: an account of infighting in Hillaryland.

So Clinton’s aides pulled a page from the book of Hollywood publicists and offered GQ a stark choice: Kill the piece, or lose access to planned celebrity coverboy Bill Clinton.

Despite internal protests, GQ editor Jim Nelson met the Clinton campaign’s demands, which had been delivered by Bill Clinton’s spokesman, Jay Carson, several sources familiar with the conversations said.

GQ writer George Saunders traveled with Clinton to Africa in July, and Clinton is slated to appear on the cover of GQ’s December issue, in which it traditionally names a “Man of the Year,” according magazine industry sources.

And the offending article by Atlantic Monthly staff writer Josh Green got the spike.

Read the rest here.

CAN IT REALLY BE that media giant ABC and popular men's (mostly fashion and lifestyle) magazine GQ are truly fearful that lack of access to the Clintons will negatively impact ratings/sales?

I dunno.

Seems to me that pols require media saturation and, whereas GQ is probably not a major player in forming and maintaining public opinion ABC, on the other hand, is. It's an institution and, although all the networks' days may be numbered (a blog for another day), it surely predates and will outlast any political dynasty. In other words, the Clintons need one (all) of the Big 3 more than any one neeeds particular access to the Clintons--at least for now.

So maybe more is going on than just threats of withholding access. Maybe it's more like the '90s and the filth we only got a glimpse of when the occasional spotlight was rapidly and willfully turned away from the scurrying roaches and their bulwark of sycophants currying favor at the expense of the public.

This is a turnpost.