Cognitive Dissonance

Comedienne Chelsea Handler feels Jenna Bush Hager is not very good at her job as a Today show correspondent. She may be correct; I avoid morning shows at all costs so I have never seen the former president's daughter at work. I never saw her at work teaching school for UNICEF in Latin America, either.

I have, however seen Ms. Handler's show, Chelsea Lately, which is on the E! Entertainment Television channel that is run by the man she recently stopped living with. I have also seen the covers of her books, so I feel I know as much about her as I care to. And having watched several minutes of her show, I feel she is definitely qualified to judge bad television.

But I am curious as to her knowledge of the world upon which she designs to comment humorously. She suggests that Jenna Bush Hager has her job because of her father. I suppose she means that the Today show or its network, NBC, hired Ms. Hager because her father used to be president. That makes sense. Because I think the world knows just how much NBC, home of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, among others, has been in the tank for George W. Bush for lo these many years. Their relentless cheerleading for the former president, his domestic initiatives and his foreign policy has made them a laughing-stock among serious news organizations and a network no serious-minded person would admit watching.

Ms. Handler also suggests that the former president got his job because of his father. Again, I understand completely where she's coming from. After all, it's not as if the elder Bush squandered stratospheric approval ratings following a spectacular military victory, or lost in only four years the aura of success that he'd been a part of for the previous eight, or was so disliked by elements of his own party that a cranky independent candidate got nearly a fifth of the popular vote, or got less than half of the electoral votes won by a mostly unknown governor from one of the nation's smallest states or anything. Now, if some of those things had happened, then it would be difficult to believe that the elder Bush's influence could work on behalf of his son within his political party or the American electorate.

So on second thought, I follow Ms. Handler's thinking exactly. President Bush #43 used to live in the same house as President Bush #41, so that's why he got to be president. Then Ms. Hager used to live in the same house as President Bush #43, so that's why she gets to be on the Today show. If you live in someone's house, then that's the person who gets you your job.

That's just the way things work, after all.