CBS's Chip Reid, an Ex-Biden Adviser, Touts Hagel's Blast at Palin

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CBS News reporter Chip Reid, who was general counsel in 1987 for Joe Biden's short presidential run, on Thursday night, unlike his colleagues on ABC and NBC, highlighted how Republican Senator Chuck Hagel denigrated the qualifications of Biden's VP competitor, Sarah Palin. Reid concluded his CBS Evening News story by noting how “Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, says it's a 'stretch' to say 'Sarah Palin is qualified to be President,'” and, with matching text on screen, Reid read how Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald: “You get a passport for the first time in your life last year?”

Reid did at least acknowledge that “Hagel has split with his party on a number of issues” (and, though Reid didn't get specific, traveled with Obama to the Middle East in August), but Reid saw Hagel as emblematic of wider concern, asserting “he's one of a number of prominent Republicans who have questioned whether Palin has enough experience in foreign policy.”

Reid jumped to CBS News last year after about eleven years with MSNBC and NBC. A “Revolving Door” item in the MRC's MediaWatch newsletter of October 1996, which I was reminded of recently by the MRC's Tim Graham, reported on some hires for the then-new MSNBC cable channel:

Chip Reid, hired to cover the White House and Capitol Hill, was general counsel in 1987 for Democrat Joe Biden's unsuccessful presidential run. For the previous four years Reid had been chief investigator for the Senate Judiciary Committee's Democratic Senators [Biden amongst them]. After Biden, Reid accepted a producer slot with ABC News and was a reporter for Washington, D.C.'s ABC affiliate, WJLA, when tapped by MSNBC.

The CBSNews.com bio of Reid skips over his direct Biden connection:

Chip practiced law, first as Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee (1982-86) and then as a litigation and lobbying specialist at a major Washington, D.C. law firm (1986-88).

Reid's conclusion to his Thursday night story:

Meanwhile, Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, says it's a “stretch” to say “Sarah Palin is qualified to be President,” asking, quote: “You get a passport for the first time in your life last year?” Hagel has split with his party on a number of issues. Still, he's one of a number of prominent Republicans who have questioned whether Palin has enough experience in foreign policy. Chip Reid, CBS News, Green Bay, Wisconsin.