This diary was originally a response to a journal on the rec list giving Chuck Todd an 'F' rating for his inaugural 'Meet the Press' episode. Given that serial hack-artist, the abysmal David Gregory sets the standard on what gets an F on anchoring Meet The Press how on earth can you give what Chuck Todd did today an F+ to D- rating? Are you saying Todd today was anywhere close to as bad as any episode of Gregory's MTP ever? I was prepared to see John McCain as the first interviewee and to be bombarded with false equivalency. That didn't happen. Todd was EXACTLY middle of the road which doesn't match where I'm at politically but matches precisely what I expect but almost never see from today's journalists and news organizations.
I tweeted the following 5 minutes into the broadcast:
"Purposefully avoiding the #MTP Twitter crawl so I can legitimately give @chucktodd the benefit of the doubt. Over to you Chuck."
I was fully prepared to critique the hell out of his inaugural episode and was pleasantly surprised to have very few qualms.
My next tweet, right after the A-Block:
My call on @chucktodd's first #MTP A-block was a tough but fair interview of President with no obvious hackery on the panel. So far so good."
My
tweet at the halfway point:
Credit where it's due: at halfway point of @chucktodd's inaugural #MTP broadcast he is leaps & bounds better than any @davidgregory episode
He next brought out a panel of 3 mayors I've never heard of from across the political divide and an intelligent, relevant non-dogfight convo ensued. It was literally the best MTP I've seen in years.
I give his first episode an A, my only real qualm being when they talked about the faux golf/vacation scandal nobody mentioned that Obama has racked up nowhere near the vacation time as his predecessors but to be fair, Obama didn't mention it either, which puzzles the hell out of me.
Anyways, after critiquing every episode of Gregory's MTP that I've ever seen and having serious reservations about Chuck Todd doing the job, I vowed to give him the benefit of the doubt until I'd seen the first episode, something that diarist obviously didn't do. When somebody in the Establishment Media gets it right they should get credit. If they don't, we don't get credibility.
To Chuck Todd, my final tweet on the matter says it all:
My only advice to @chucktodd following his excellent inaugural #MTP is that he's still just one #McCain interview away from internet infamy
All for now, see you next week on Judge The Press!