Chelsea Clinton hired as special correspondent for NBC News

Bill Carter of the New York Times is reporting that Chelsea Clinton, the fiercely-protected only child of Bill and Hillary Clinton, has been hired by NBC News as a full-time special correspondent. This definitively puts to bed last month's rumor, apparently started by Politico, that Chelsea was possibly/potentially/perhaps considering running for Congress in New York's solidly Democratic 18th district in Westchester County.

The thirty-one-year-old Chelsea, who Bill Clinton has said "has her mother's character and her father's energy" and is working on a Ph.D. in public policy from NYU, will make her bid to become the next Maria Shriver beginning today. She will report to the news division offices and start plugging away on stories to be used as part of the "Making a Difference" series featured on NBC Nightly News, according to NBC News president Steve Capus. Capus hired Clinton after a long conversation in which she explained how she had been inspired by working on her mother's presidential campaign in 2008, during which she spoke at more than 400 town halls.

Clinton, who intends to donate all her NBC earnings to the Clinton Foundation and George Washington University Hospital in the name of her recently-deceased maternal grandmother, will work on feature reports that focus on individuals making ameliorative volunteer commitments to their community. She said in a statement, "I hope telling stories through 'Making a Difference' — as in my academic work and nonprofit work — will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.' "

As a sidenote, Clinton will not be the first presidential daughter to work for NBC. George W. Bush's daughter Jenna works as a correspondent for the Today show, and another presidential candidate's daughter, the outspoken Meghan McCain, is a contributor to MSNBC. So the ingredients for a potential political catfight are right there, but if Chelsea's learned anything from her old man, it's how to triangulate.