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David Gregory is in talks with NBC News to become the next moderator of “Meet the Press,” the popular Sunday news show.

If the deal is consummated, the baby-faced White House correspondent and fill-in “Today” show host will face an enormous challenge to fill the shoes of the late Tim Russert, a widely respected journalist who died last June of a heart attack.

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NBC has insisted there is no deal yet. But the Washington Post reported today that the network could announce a decision as early as Sunday, when Tom Brokaw is expected to end his temporary stint as moderator with an interview with President-elect Barack Obama.

Other leading contenders for the job have included NBC News correspondents Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell, PBS host Gwen Ifill, MSNBC host Chris Matthews and former Nightline host Ted Koppel, who recently ended a long-term contract with Discovery.

One reason the 38-year-old Gregory may have pulled ahead of the competition is his long-term value to NBC. He is often described as its first choice to one day succeed Matt Lauer as host of “Today.”

“Today” is the most profitable show on television, and therefore, hugely significant to Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC’s parent, NBC Universal, according to the New York Times. That show is also personally important to Zucker, a former executive producer who led “Today” to its current ratings’ dominance.

Gregory, the son of a Broadway producer, has been the network’s chief White House correspondent throughout the years of the Bush administration, where he had a reputation as a relentless questioner who would engage in verbal sparring with White House press secretaries when he felt his questions were given short shrift.

After Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a hunting companion, for instance, Gregory admonished press secretary Scott McClellan: “Don’t tell me you’re giving us complete answers when you’re not actually answering the question.”

On another occasion, Gregory said: “Don’t be a jerk to me personally when I’m asking you a serious question.” Gregory later apologized to McClellan.

Yet he also maintained relationships with those he covered. He famously celebrated his 30th birthday aboard George W. Bush’s campaign plane eight years ago – with the cake provided by the candidate.

Bush nicknamed the 6-foot-5 reporter “Stretch” early in his tenure and later downgraded him to “Little Stretch,” according to the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz.

It hasn’t hurt Gregory that he is well-connected to parts of the Washington power establishment through his wife, Beth Wilkinson, a prominent attorney. The two met when Gregory was covering the Oklahoma City bombing as a reporter and Wilkinson was serving as prosecutor on the case.

Besides having worked as a Justice Department prosecutor, Wilkinson is a former Fannie Mae executive, who resigned from the beleaguered mortgage agency Sept. 19 after the government assumed control. (She had been recruited to help the mortgage agency rebuild its relationship with regulators after a series of accounting scandals in 2006.)

Among the visitors attending the baby shower for the couple’s first child was then-Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff whom Wilkinson worked with at the law firm Latham & Watkins as well as at the Justice Department.

Gregory attended American University in Washington, where he also began working as a journalist. As an 18-year-old freshman, he cut a deal with the ABC affiliate in Tucson to use him as a Washington correspondent. He joined NBC as a Chicago-based correspondent in 1996.

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