When Chelsea Clinton, with her, ahem, long record of accomplishment, offered her services to the TV networks, they all jumped at the chance.
BuzzFeed
To get the TV gig, Chelsea’s team played off rival networks, holding a series of meetings in New York last fall with all the major television news outlets, including ABC, CBS, and CNN. “Her agent calls, asks if you want to meet with Chelsea Clinton, you take the meeting,” one network executive tells BuzzFeed.
Team Chelsea. She has “people.” One wonders if she lives in a “compound” like the sainted Kennedy clan.
But she didn’t blow anyone away with her presence during the interview process, according to network executives who interviewed her. “Horrible,” says another high ranking TV executive who met with Chelsea. “There were ground rules, what she could and couldn’t report, only good news, no politics, ” says the executive, who felt Chelsea would be a dud and passed.
There was a sense in the meetings that that the news channels were auditioning for her — not the other way around — which rubbed a few of those she met with the wrong way. “They acted like we should be grateful” that she was offering herself to the networks, says the exec.
Even high ranking company officials within NBC, according to sources at 30 Rock, weren’t that impressed with her. One senior staffer told colleagues after multiple meetings that Chelsea was going to be simply “terrible” on television. Upon her arrival, Chelsea was given a welcome bag, filled with NBC swag, 30 Rockers tell me. NBC’s David Gregory responded by jokingly asking: “Where’s my welcome bag?”
Read it all. It explains a lot.
There is some nonsense, such as this:
Chelsea has, within her, one of the final untold chapters of the Clinton era scandals, a piece of ‘90s history that we already look back on with a mix of bewilderment, denial, and shame. (Did the political media class really spend the 90’s investigating a blowjob? Yep.)
Nope, the Clinton scandal was about a sitting president who suborned perjury and lied under oath.
Scooter Libby was ruined for supposedly lying to the FBI.
Martha Stewart did time in prison for supposedly lying to the FBI.
Roger Clemens is being tried for supposedly lying to Congress.
Bill Clinton was disbarred for his lawbreaking conduct.
If there was denial and shame, it all belongs to Slick Willie.