Chelsea Clinton's Debut as a TV Reporter -- a Step to a Political Future?

COMMENTARY | Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made her debut as a TV reporter on the show "Rock Center with Brian Williams" on NBC, according to the Los Angeles Times

Clinton's segment was about a woman named Annette Dove who is helping disadvantaged children in Pine Bluff, Ark. Her father was the governor of Arkansas during much of the 1980s, before he was elected president in 1992.

The inevitable criticism has arisen to the effect that Clinton owes her job to her celebrity and for whom her parents are than to any journalistic skill. The Washington Post has a roundup of what media critics have to say. They range from "slightly underwhelming" from Entertainment Weekly to "Didn't electrify broadcast journalism" from the Washington Post.

But the article points out Clinton is not the first political scion to find her way into broadcast journalism. Maria Shriver, related to the Kennedy family, Jenna Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush, and Meghan McCain, daughter of senator and former presidential candidate John McCain, all work on network TV.

Rush Limbaugh, in a recent broadcast, had a more sinister interpretation of Clinton's employment as a TV reporter. Noting she did not follow the typical career path, reporting on local news in a variety of media markets before jumping to the network, Limbaugh suggested she was being groomed as a, "Statist in ! training ."

The theory seems to be Clinton's stint as a TV reporter is designed to make her appear comfortable in the media. But to what end?

Limbaugh is clearly implying a political future for the younger Clinton, something that as an enemy of the Clintons for two decades he finds abhorrent. It is difficult to see how a job as a reporter for puff pieces on a TV news magazine is a good career path leading to politics, but it is not outside the realm of possibility.

The history of children of politicians becoming politicians themselves has been mixed. The younger generation of Kennedys has been distinguished only by her undistinguishness. The Bush brothers, George W and Jeb, have done well, in some ways overshadowing their father. However one has some difficulty imagining a Rep. Chelsea Clinton, a Senator Chelsea Clinton, a Gov. Chelsea Clinton or -- especially -- a President Chelsea Clinton. But stranger things have happened.