Chelsea Clinton Underwhelms Viewers in Her Network TV Debut

If she thought she was going to get the kid glove treatment she's grown used to in her 30+ years once she became a network TV star, she was wrong:

It’s no surprise whatsoever that Chelsea Clinton didn’t electrify broadcast journalism with her debut Monday night on NBC’s “Rock Center With Brian Williams,” because she has no experience in broadcast journalism. She didn’t cut her teeth with live coverage of strip-mall blazes in Sacramento. She never did weekend weather in Wichita Falls. She didn’t blow the lid off mail-order ham scams in Des Moines. (Who — besides everyone working in TV news who did each and every one of those things — says you have to do all that?)

Rather, what was surprising to see on Monday night’s show is how someone can be on TV in such a prominent way and, in her big moment, display so very little charisma — none at all. Either we’re spoiled by TV’s unlimited population of giant personalities or this woman is one of the most boring people of her era.

From first daughter to NBC correspondent: Chelsea Clinton, the former first daughter whom America met as a middle-schooler, has been hired by NBC as a special correspondent and will join the network’s news division.

Which is well within her rights to be.

Except on television.

This was a stupid hire by NBC. You don't take someone with no broadcast experience and put them on a prominent network news show just because they have a famous name. And trying to turn Chelsea into a journalist is laughable in its irony because it's been clear for years that she HATED the media and everyone in it. Now suddenly she's one of them.

And she never had to pay any dues to get there, and for that reason alone other seasoned journalists will resent her every day she's in that job. And based on her performance, they may not have to put up with her all that long.