So says Tom Shales, Style writer for the Washington Post, who seems firmly in the Team-Tapper camp:
Tapper, in fact, grew quickly and comfortably into the role of “This Week” host and became a kind of “favorite son” in campaigns by fans on Facebook and the Internet generally — even as the clock ticked his interim tenure away and the Grand Duchess Amanpour approached on her royal barge from overseas. Is this a classic case of fixing that which wasn’t broken? The question is especially apt considering Amanpour’s $2 million annual salary, a glaring extravagance at a news division suffering mightily under the cruelty of cutbacks and personnel pruning.
During Tapper’s tenure, in fact, “This Week” accomplished its longtime goal of out-rating, on at least one Sunday, the oldest established permanent floating chat game in D.C., NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Of course there has to be an asterisk in the record book because “Press” is still feeling the loss of Washington fixture Tim Russert, who set a record by helming that show for 16 top-rated years until his death in 2008.
Even so, the adept and likable Tapper stood a good chance of steering “This Week” into the kind of dominance that “Meet the Press” has so long enjoyed. And it didn’t require any globe-trotting Fancy-Pants to do it.