Chelsea Clinton is now on television as a kind of amateur reporter who will go out for NBC and come back with heart warming stories of people helping others. Okay, nothing wrong with that, is there? Well, maybe.

Chelsea and her mom hate the media with an absolute, unbridled passion. They assume that those who swarmed around the White House when Bill was president were little more than a pack of jackals out to destroy his presidency. There is some truth in that, but it is not the whole story.

It is as if Chelsea has spent the last 15 years shouting (in her own room), “I hate you! I hate you!”, and then, suddenly, said, “Hey, can I be one of you?” The whole thing doesn’t make sense, unless you are a young woman with a big, big celebrity name and can’t think of a better way to use your time and, strangest of all, boost your recognition as a celebrity. If she wanted to have a quiet life away from media and public attention, this isn’t the way to get it. In ten years time, she might not have been recognized by the public much at all. Now, her face, rather than those occasional pictures from her childhood, will be known to millions.

Alessandra Stanley has this take on Clinton’s new job in the New York Times:

After years of avoiding journalists, Ms. Clinton said she was ready  to become one of them, in order, as she put it, to lead a “purposefully public life.”

It’s a noble sentiment, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense because of her last  name, there are plenty of ways to do good works and publicize worthy causes besides becoming a television newscaster. Given her past  reticence, Ms. Clinton’s decision to work at NBC News is almost as puzzling as Caroline Kennedy’s short-lived plan in 2009 to run for the New York Senate seat left vacant by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Both choices seem less like a new vocation than a violation of a long-standing nonaggression pact with the media. LINK TO THE TIMES  STORY.

  Photography from Guatemala, Maryland, Italy and elsewhere by Doug Terry

BIKE TRAILS IN THE DC AREA