Chelsea Clinton's New NBC Gig Brings TV Closer To Total Political-Daughter Domination

NBC has hired Chelsea Clinton as a special correspondent, meaning that TV news should be entirely composed of politicians’ offspring by 2020.

According to the Times, this is how she got the job:

[NBC News president Steve] Capus said an intermediary contacted him in July with word that “she was kicking around what she wanted to do next.”

Mr. Capus said he had met with Ms. Clinton and had a long conversation that began with a simple question. “I asked her: ‘What are you interested in doing?'”

Chelsea has always seemed like a smart lady, and no doubt she’ll work hard at her new job. Still, wouldn’t it be nice if when you weren’t sure what to do with your life, the president of NBC News just called you up and asked you what type of job you felt like having? This appears to be reality for political kids, three of whom now work in national news media. The other two would be Jenna Bush Hager, who’s a correspondent for the Today show, and Meghan McCain, who works for MSNBC.

Click to viewHager’s first outing for Today was her interview with 11-year-old public speaker Dalton Sherman. This was obviously a pretty soft assignment, and it sounds like Clinton’s work will be similar. She apparently told Capus she was interested in “stories of people making personal contributions” — he says, “We knew she wasn’t going to do the lead story. But having somebody who was going to do really captivating feature assignments for the ‘Making a Difference’ franchise really kind of synced up.”

Click to viewMeghan McCain’s debut as an MSNBC correspondent on Nov. 2 was a bit more politically charged — asked to evaluate the current Republican presidential candidates, she criticized Herman Cain’s handling of his recent sexual harassment scandal and called Newt Gingrich “delusional.” It’s understandable that growing up during their dads’ very contentious presidencies might make Hager and Clinton want to pursue less controversial subjects — and perhaps they’re preserving inoffensive public images for the purposes of later campaign work. Still, if political offspring are going to be fast-tracked into TV, I’d like to see them get a little bit more down-and-dirty. I’m thinking a debate between Clinton, Hager, McCain and maybe Jon Huntsman’s daughters, officiated by Luke Russert. If news is going to be a dynastic system, at least let’s make it a fun one.