Updated: WaPo Writer/Singer Can't Report on Jenna Bush's NBC Gig Without the Words 'Bar-Hopping and Boozing''

August 31st, 2009 9:09 AM

NBC's Today picked up Jenna (Bush) Hager to be an occasional correspondent on education for the morning show. If the Bushes instead of the Kennedys were the "royal family" of American politics, it would be like NBC's use of Princess Diana's brother years ago. Get a load of how Justin Moyer of the Washington Post cattily greeted the news in the Style section:

The bar-hopping and boozing are a distant memory: Jenna Hager, nee Bush, is headed to NBC's "Today" show, AP reports. The 27-year-old former first daughter will contribute education stories to the popular morning program about once a month while continuing to work in Baltimore as a schoolteacher.

UPDATE: Moyer actually performs as a musician under the name "Edie Sedgwick." A Post music critic explained: "Sedgwick is actually Antelope singer-guitarist (and Washington Post employee) Justin Moyer, recording under the name of the 1960s Andy Warhol 'superstar.' He's still singing about movie actors, but his latest songs include ones named for President Bush and 'March of the Penguins.'"

That would be the song "Bambi/George W.  Bush." The Edie Sedgwick website suggests these lyrics:

Learning to be human again by learning to be subhuman again.
Learning to be Messianic again by learning to be archaic again.
Learning to live your whole life again by learning to sharpen your knives again.
Learning to be reflexive again by learning to be reflective again.

Wow, there's a profile in journalistic objectivity.

AP reporter David Bauder's story reports Today executive producer Jim Bell thought she showed a comfort on camera, and insisted she won't be like Maria Shriver:

Bell said Hager won't be covering politics. He said he didn't consider the job as a down payment for a future interview with her father, who has been living quietly in Texas since leaving office earlier this year. Attacks on NBC News by conservatives for the liberal bent of MSNBC also had nothing to do with it, he said.

Let's have fun imagining Justin Moyer and his editors at the Washington Post Style section never engaged in drinking at bars or clubs before they hit legal drinking age, not to mention what other teenaged hi-jinks they engaged in. It's almost as imaginable as having them tease the Gore children if they drew an NBC paycheck. Imbalance reminder here.