Image from Rachel Maddow's Facebook Page
UPDATE: Since Rachel's show premieres today, and I wrote this yesterday, I thought I should bump it up to the top. Don't forget to watch!
Having featured stories about Rachel Maddow on this blog around fifty-seven times, you might imagine, I'm pretty jazzed about her new MSNBC show. I know, political geek, what can I say?
Rachel is not just another pundit. Sure, they're coiffing her, putting on makeup and making her wear "lady clothes," but if her performance on the channel in the past is any indication, America will be getting a whole different kind of political commentary show.
Many have lamented that she's a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, and that MSNBC is throwing objectivity out the window. Sorry, that ship has long since sailed. Cable news is already peppered with partisans, and not just MSNBC. FOX "News" cornered that market long ago, despite their "fair and balanced" branding. But sticking with MSNBC, there have already been partisans hosting shows there. Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, Michael "Weiner" Savage; all strongly conservative (and in the latter's case, clinically insane).
So, who are the liberals? Right now we have Keith Olbermann. That's about it. MSNBC had Phil Donahue, briefly, and cancelled him (even though he had higher ratings than Scarborough or Carlson). And now we'll have Rachel Maddow. Wow, that's really tilting the balance, isn't it?
But Rachel, while surely liberal, isn't some raving blowhard like Savage. She's funny, smart, remarkably affable, and--wait for it--a maverick. She's known for going off script, and for getting to the stories the rest of the news isn't covering. There are two of her best bits from the radio program that I hope to see her carry over to the teevee machine.
Rachel is not just another pundit. Sure, they're coiffing her, putting on makeup and making her wear "lady clothes," but if her performance on the channel in the past is any indication, America will be getting a whole different kind of political commentary show.
Many have lamented that she's a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, and that MSNBC is throwing objectivity out the window. Sorry, that ship has long since sailed. Cable news is already peppered with partisans, and not just MSNBC. FOX "News" cornered that market long ago, despite their "fair and balanced" branding. But sticking with MSNBC, there have already been partisans hosting shows there. Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough, Michael "Weiner" Savage; all strongly conservative (and in the latter's case, clinically insane).
So, who are the liberals? Right now we have Keith Olbermann. That's about it. MSNBC had Phil Donahue, briefly, and cancelled him (even though he had higher ratings than Scarborough or Carlson). And now we'll have Rachel Maddow. Wow, that's really tilting the balance, isn't it?
But Rachel, while surely liberal, isn't some raving blowhard like Savage. She's funny, smart, remarkably affable, and--wait for it--a maverick. She's known for going off script, and for getting to the stories the rest of the news isn't covering. There are two of her best bits from the radio program that I hope to see her carry over to the teevee machine.
Burying the Lede, is a segment where she deconstructs the angle that the rest of the media are hitting, and tells us the real story. And Poking the Underbelly explores the seedier side of politics. Great stuff.
Mostly what I'm hoping for is that Rachel just gets to be Rachel. I want to see a show that isn't covering the same three or four stories everyone else is covering. Or at least, that she studies them from a different angle. After listening to her on the radio machine for several years, I'm confident that she'll do just that. And if she does, and is successful at it, she's going to turn the world of cable news on its ear.
The Rachel Maddow Show will air on MSNBC weekdays, 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific, starting Monday, September 8.
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