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After giving him a large and constant forum to spout whatever drivel popped into his pretty little orange head about Obama (“he the worst President ever”, “I have real questions about his birth” “I could easily be President if I ran”) , NBC suddenly realized that if he did, indeed, run for President - or appeared to- there were f’ed and far from home. You see, regardless of how bad Celebrity Apprentice is (and it can be jaw droppingly bad) it has to stay on the air until Sunday night football. NBC doesn't have what one would call a deep bench to call up (Paul Reiser's new show should be ample proof of that.)
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And, if The Donald runs – and the more press he gets the more it seems he might – he can’t be on the network.
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How do I know this? Kids I am from California – land of the actor / politicians. The Gipper’s movies had to be pulled from rotation every time he was running – no big loss (Bedtime for Bonzo anyone). And then for the last 6 years, every election Terminators 1 and 2 had to be pulled – along with any of the Govornator’s other movies. Granted, not a huge loss, but it annoyed every station in LA when they had to pre-empt Terminator 3 - a recent hit which played everywhere else in the country, which was shown everywhere else. And the bumping of the Conan movies really screwed with Spike (ne Spike TV, ne TNN, ne The Nashville Network). Dude, that was, like, half their rotation at the time.
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Getting free attention for Celebrity Apprentice - perfectly fine. Letting crazy man convince himself he can run and win - time to call out the dogs.