Hillary Clinton caught between liberal and conservative media. (Hillary Clinton/Twitter)

On Monday, both CNN and NBC announced the cancellation of their respective Hillary Clinton-focused projects. The programs, which were revealed to broad speculation earlier this summer, have been the center of intense opposition in the political world since their announcements. In fact, it seems like the only thing both parties can agree on recently is that these projects were going to be a bad idea.

In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, avid Clinton supporter James Carville expressed his endorsement of the cancellations. “That was one of those rare things where everybody thought cancelling was a good idea. Reince Priebus didn’t want it. The Clinton people didn’t want it. There was real bipartisanship here.  This was an idea whose time had not come—and probably never will.”

But why will its time never come? Would the production of a Hillary Clinton feature really end the world?

SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton Makes A Move For The Presidency

It seems the Republic National Committee (RNC) thought so, as chairman Reince Priebus announced that his party would block both CNN and NBC from partaking in their primary debates for the 2016 presidential election if they went forward with their productions. This statement, released in letters of protest that Priebus sent to each station in early August, created a widespread disapproval from both of the networks’ news divisions. Journalists Candy Crowley of CNN and Chuck Todd at NBC were two of the journalists to raise their voices; Todd even went as far as to say the project was “a total nightmare for NBC News.”

After the cancellation of the projects, the boycotts were dropped by the RNC. “This whole episode is just the first step in the RNC’s efforts to ensure presidential primary debates serve the interests of voters—not the mainstream media,” Priebus claims in a September 30 post on Breitbart.com. However, the extremity of the threat raises some questions.

Does the GOP really feel that threatened by Hillary Clinton already, when she has not even declared her candidacy for the 2016 presidential race? The desperation of a boycott does not show power on the part of the GOP, it shows fear.

In any case, it seems the RNC succeeded in “sham[ing] the networks into changing course,” in the words of Priebus. However, the cancellation of the CNN documentary seemed to be primarily related to a different opposition: that of the Clintons themselves.

In a blog post published Monday on The Huffington Post, Charles Ferguson, the acclaimed director intended to head the documentary, claimed Clinton’s press secretary, Nick Merrill, interrogated him the day after he signed the contract with CNN. Ferguson goes on to say that Phillipe Reines, Clinton’s media fixer, then contacted multiple people at CNN to express a concern about a conflict of interest due to the documentary’s nature as a for-profit project. Ultimately, he wrote, “when I approached people for interviews, I discovered that nobody, and I mean nobody, was interested in helping me make this film. Not Democrats, not Republicans—and certainly nobody who works with the Clintons, wants access to the Clintons, or dreams of a position in a Hillary Clinton administration.” Two people who had ever dealt with Hillary in person agreed to be interviewed on camera, and Ferguson “suspected that even they would back out.” With such a lack of sources, he said that he decided he could not make a film that he would be proud of, and cancelled the project.

SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton Supports Equality And Gay Marriage

Clinton’s desire to stay out of the media is understandable. When Sarah Palin took a chance on a television debut in 2010 in “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” an eight-episode documentary series on TLC, she was greeted with wide mockery from many prominent late-night comedians. The premiere of the show brought up old jokes about her famous misquote, “I can see Russia from my house!” over two years after the incident.

This kind of resurfacing of embarrassment and scandal is specifically what liberal David Brock was worried about with the development of both Clinton projects. He published a discouraging letter to CNN and NBC on his liberally inclined website, Media Matters for America, and while his intention was not to stop people from speaking to Ferguson, he said he was pleased if that was an unintended effect. “My concern was that there would be potentially an anti-Clinton animus to this film, and what he wrote in The Huffington Post today shows that I was right,” he told the New York Times.

But the question that needs to be asked is, why the sudden obsession with Hillary? She’s a woman, yes, and the suspected Democratic front-runner in the 2016 presidential campaign, but is that enough to create interest in two different programs focused on her life within the same year?

Arguably, the answer is yes. No one approached Barack Obama about covering his life story when he was considering running for president in 2008. No one has asked Joe Biden to film a documentary series to show his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania to America, through his eyes.

And it seems that even with the cancellation of two television programs, Clinton is not yet out of the entertainment business’ spotlight. On October 1, the conservative group Citizens United announced their plans for a Hillary movie shown in theaters, aired on television, and distributed on DVD. The movie will focus on Hillary's recent life as the secretary of state, and is slated to be released in 2016, prior to the presidential election.

This is not the organization's first effort at a Hillary-focused feature, either. Citizens United is famous for successfully suing the United States government over the prevented airing of their 2008 effort "Hillary: The Movie." In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, David Bossie, the president and chairman of Citizens United, expressed his excitement for the new project. “Now that I won that case, I can do whatever I want with this new movie. I can advertise it on radio and TV, show it on TV whenever I want to—all the things they stopped us from doing with 'Hillary: The Movie.'”

It's also safe to say that this is one project the GOP won't have to worry about tipping the scales in Hillary's favor. “NBC was casting Diane Lane as Hillary Clinton. Come on. They were doing everything in their power to make Hillary look good, which is their right,” Bossie said. “But ours will not be a puff piece designed to promote a Hillary Clinton presidency.”

Another feature film focusing on her years as a young lawyer, titled "Rodham", is still moving forward, as well. The film, which is based on public figures and material in the public domain, is out of the Clintons’ reach and is sure to spark interest as one of the films featured on last year’s annual Hollywood Black List.

SEE ALSO: Daily Hollywood - Hillary Biopic, New Mariah Carey, And More

So why are the Clintons fighting a battle with the media that they will ultimately lose? Their insistence on crushing anything Hillary-related suggests that there could be something to hide after all, even though the GOP was clearly more worried about the possibility of programs portraying Hillary in a flattering manner. It could be that the Clintons are just trying to avoid any press, good or bad, that could make the public think less of her professionally. The original screenplay of "Rodham" featured a few racy scenes that would be sure to portray the political figure in a new light. Once Hillary is turned into an object of desire, even by an actress in her 20s, she will be taken less seriously as a politician whether the scenes have any truth to them or not.

However, ultimately, what is to be taken away from such a fiasco is that neither political party is willing to be 100 percent open and fair anymore. The Clintons denied any access to Ferguson, a liberal director who surely would have given them a fair shake. The RNC essentially resorted to blackmailing the networks involved to prevent the programs from going through.

In his blog post, Ferguson echoes this sentiment, "It's a victory for the Clintons, and for the money machines that both political parties have now become. But I don't think that it's a victory for the media, or for the American people."

Reach Staff Reporter Caitlin Plummer here. Follow her on Twitter here.