Everybody Loves Rachel Maddow
http://prospect.org/article/everybody-loves-rachel-maddowEverybody Loves Rachel Maddow
Tom Carson
March 26, 2012
With brains, good humor—and too much showmanship—MSNBC’s biggest star has captured the liberal imagination.
(Photo by Frank Micelotta/PictureGroup)
I can’t say for sure when it happened—it was after Barack Obama’s swearing-in yet before Keith Olbermann got suspended for giving money to Democrats—but at some point it began dawning on people that the face of MSNBC was Rachel Maddow. Certainly her bosses thought so. Not only did she have her own prime-time show but she also began landing the gigs traditionally reserved for a network’s Grand Poo-Bah, in particular, anchoring election-night coverage.
You can understand why MSNBC execs would want Maddow in this talismanic chair for the 2012 campaign. Young and sunny, she’s their highest-rated anchor, especially among the magical 25-to-54 demographic, which makes her the ideal front woman for a network whose tagline is “Lean Forward.” Just as important, she’s their easiest and most polite host, a woman who once chastised Pat Buchanan on Dan Abrams after he told a Clinton campaign worker to “shut up,” a rebuke that left the old pitchfork-waver abashed. Although she can sometimes be too doggone cute, Maddow embodies virtues—rationality, good humor, and courtesy—that make her an alluring alternative to our culture’s furious partisan stridency. Her upbeat civility is perfect for wrangling MSNBC’s election-night panel, which includes such monsters of vainglory as bluff, blue-collar Ed Schultz, Lawrence (“I’m the real insider here”) O’Donnell, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, whose patter has become so lazily formulaic that he seems like a refugee from Portlandia. Smiling and cajoling, Maddow turns them as amiable as puppies.
Maddow is someone liberals can feel good about themselves for liking. She has left-of-Barack politics, yet because her father is a retired Air Force captain, she can speak of caring about the troops without shamming. She’s got the intellectual credentials that our side loves—an Oxford Ph.D.! —yet she’s also down with pop culture, talking of her life in terms of John Hughes movies. Topping it all off, she’s an openly lesbian anchor in an era when people still discuss whether Anderson Cooper is gay. Not so long ago, being out would have kept Maddow off the air. Now, it feels positively ordinary.
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Watching her program, you can see how carefully she studied Olbermann’s way of juggling entertainment, politics, and headlines. She learned that a news show should be a show, with humor, shifting rhythms of monologue and dialogue, catchily labeled segments, and a deployment of old clips that aspires to prestidigitation. This vast galaxy is a wonder to be exploited, whether you’re tracing how presidents have talked up war over the decades or how once--maverick Republicans like John McCain went from embracing cap-and-trade to shunning it. Maddow also grasped—and shared—Olbermann’s respect for language. No news show in history has ever been so fastidiously, even preeningly written as Countdown. But where Olbermann increasingly came to read his lines, even his funny ones, with an overbearing, almost martial precision—by God, he was going to let you know how magnificently written his program was—Maddow has always been shrewd at knowing how to make herself appealing. Although The Rachel Maddow Show is probably the second most painstakingly written news show ever, she reads her script in a deliberately shambly way that feels down-to-earth. (Think of her wearing that blue hard hat in the terrific MSNBC promo at the Hoover Dam.) Her persona appeals to the viewer’s intelligence by being hard to catch in the act of being intelligent.
= new reply since forum marked as read
or is she trying to bring back the Goldwater look?
I wear black RayBans.
TYY
I'm serious! My ex was in the CG, wore them, and that's what he called them. 
She's so smart & beautiful and cool. 
I just love her!
or not?
she rushs through..poor Lewis never got to take a sip.
I think Rachel is great, too, but this story, not so much. 
in a detailed, yet calm manner. I like how she doesn't have to shout over her guests who have opposing views in order to get hers across. I also like how she doesn't hold back on the Dems whenever someone from our side does something shady or foolish, such as how there were a few who voted for the Blunt Amendment. People try to accuse MSNBC (and especially Rachel's show) of being the polar opposite of Fox News and being "liberal propaganda", but I think her show is about as close as a person can get to being fair and balanced, yet providing the facts.
Briliiant, adorable, and humble. We love you Rachel!
Keep up the great work. 
Just really attractive.
- K&RSlight problem: All-Time Favorite Human Being compared her wife 
to Rachel the other day. Now I fear she may have ruined Rachel for me, too. 
you're probably living a nice peaceful life w/o the tube. 
and she suddenly announced, "I'm going to marry Rachel!"
If you were Republican.... you'd be taking your granddaughter for electric shock treatments... IMMEDIATELY!
Cure that liberal/gay away!
for so many reasons, one of the best being how QUICK she is on her comebacks against RW talking points, and how she catches them in their lies. Brilliant!!!!
It's not a RW bumper stickers show y'know. The world is complicated so it might take a precious 10 minutes to give you the info. It might take a whole friggin' 10 minutes to explain the Wall Street scams or the diplomatic tensions in Iran. The whole problem with RW talking points is there is no substance to them. That's why RW ideas don't work. They haven't thought them thru.... for 10 minutes. This instant gratification lazy anti-intellectualism is what's ruining this country.
Don't tell me.... you can't sit thru an 86 minute movie without getting up at least once...right? 
I was an instant fan and that is unusual - it usually takes a while for me to warm up to people 
