Brokaw Plays Hall Monitor at NBC News

Two interesting bits of news in today's New York Times story about Tom Brokaw and Meet the Press:

First, while NBC hasn't settled on a replacement for the late Tim Russert, "it is leaning toward an ensemble of hosts that would be led by Chuck Todd, NBC's political director, and include David Gregory, a correspondent and MSNBC anchor, according to a person who had been briefed on the proposal but was not authorized to comment."

Second, Brokaw reveals that he lobbied, successfully, against letting Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews serve as anchors of MSNBC's political news coverage. Brokaw has hinted in the past at his discomfort with MSNBC's increasingly partisan identity -- for instance, when he said Olbermann and Matthews had "gone too far" in some of their on-air remarks. But stating publicly that he pulled rank on the cable guys is sure to rile the famously grievance-prone Olbermann. And Brokaw's language might not help:

"Keith is an articulate guy who writes well and doesn't make his arguments in a 'So's your old mother' kind of way," Brokaw tells the Times. "The mistake was to think he could fill both roles. The other mistake was to think he wouldn't be tempted to use the anchor position to engage in commentary. That's who he is."

Brokaw also seems to slight his Nightly News successor, Brian Williams, when he recounts a conversation with a McCain aide over the upcoming presidential debates.

"One of the things I was told by this person was that they were so irritated, they said, 'If it's an NBC moderator, for any of these debates, we won't go.' My name came up, and they said, 'Oh, hell, we have to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw.'"

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