Meet Curly. No, Mo.

David Gregory has suddenly been terminated as the moderator of NBC's Sunday talk show "Meet The Press," without being given the dignity of a farewell show.  Gregory proved to be an ineffective host, allowing politicians - usually Republicans - to push their talking points and spin on the show without following up on the veracity of their statements, and he also allowed the topics of the week to be packaged into some form of narrative that benefited the status quo in Washington at the expense of everything else.  With "Meet The Press"'s ratings in the toilet, NBC's bosses decided to try something different.

Then they changed their minds and replaced Gregory with Chuck Todd.

The only difference between Gregory and Todd is that Todd has a goatee.  Todd has more often than not proven to be a cheerleader for the Washington establishment, which is increasingly a Republican-dominated one. To keep pushing the narrative of a Republican blowout in the 2010 midterm elections, he dismissed a Democratic U.S. Senate primary in North Carolina as irrelevant because incumbent Republican senator Richard Burr - originally thought to be vulnerable - was going to win anyway.  Burr did win, though his victory was possibly helped in part by Todd's psychological prodding.  Todd has made a career out of second-guessing Democratic efforts to regain power in Congress - again, feeding the narrative that drives policy and elections toward something resembling a pre-ordained outcome, a hallmark of Big Media.  And what about pointing out lies in politics, as Tim Russert did so brilliantly and David Gregory did so poorly on "Meet The Press?"  Don't bet on Todd to call folks out on misstatements when he starts his new gig on September 7 (Andrea Mitchell will host "Meet The Press" in the interim); remember, he famously told former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell on national television that it wasn't his job as a journalist to expose Republican lies about the Affordable Care Act.          

You know, I remember that Theodore Roosevelt said that if honest men didn't enter politics, there would be no way to keep politics honest (although that quote was from a children's biography I read when I was nine, so T.R. probably never said it).  Well, journalists are supposed to keep politics honest, but Todd was probably afraid he'd lose his chance to be a White House press secretary in a future Republican administration if he did that.  Only now he's going to be the host of "Meet The Press," which is currently the same thing as the press secretary for the Republican opposition (spin away, Tim Russert).

One good thing has obviously come out of this: Todd will no longer host "The Daily Rundown," a curious mix of insider politics, historical trivia, and announcements of the White House cafeteria's soup of the day.  Either that show will get a badly needed makeover under a new host or be replaced by something else.  I haven't watched that show since Savannah Guthrie - who, coincidentally, just had a baby - left.  And I don't expect to resume watching "Meet The Press" either.