Having watched Chuck Todd's first day of school, here is how I would grade his performance:
1. Did he fit the shoes? Grade D
There is an expectation that the moderator of MTP should display gravitas, or at least some telegenicity. Todd looked most often like he felt out of place - as he should since he has neither the journalistic or show business chops for the job.
2. Did he overcome the criticism that he's simply a politics and numbers guy? Grade F
Almost every subject was approached from the political angle. I almost choked on my coffee when he went to the stand-up screen to rush through a mishmash of polling.
3. Selection of pundits. Grade B
I don't know where he'll go in the future, but this week's panel was a fair assortment of people drawn from the NBC/MSNBC stable of experts instead of political hacks. However, I'm coming to despise Andrea Mitchell because I haven't seen her appear on TV once in the past six months or so that she hasn't pounded on President Obama for not bombing Syria.
Even Joe Scarborough contributed some relevant and moderate remarks. He said the President did a good job of laying out the issues and answering the questions, and he had some good advice for Todd. "We too often focus on tan suits, golf, and (things like) 'having a plan.'"
4. Substance vs. Superficiality Grade F
He couldn't help himself from rolling in the false memes, equivalencies, etc. Even though he knows a lot of that criticism of Obama is manufactured - he continually spit them out.
So, that's either an F+ or D-. What say you?