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TechnoratiMaddow is Liberal Queen of US News
America's liberals are pinching themselves in delight and disbelief at the surprising emergence of a self-proclaimed 'butch dyke' as a star of America's cable television news.
![[Maddow also continues to host “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Air America.]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/maddow_0.jpg "maddow.jpg")
Rachel Maddow, whose publicity material describes her as 'the first openly gay Rhodes scholar', was only given her own show on the MSNBC cable network on 8 September, but she has already doubled the ratings. Last week she even beat CNN's veteran Larry King.
Liberals are thrilled because America's cable TV news has long been the preserve of angry right-wing white male presenters, such as Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.
Thirty-five-year-old Maddow's low-key humour, rigorous research and empathetic approach has made her the overnight darling of the liberal media. One rapturous blogger called her 'the Everlasting Progressive, the Princess of News'.
'Ms Maddow's deep, modulated voice is reassuringly calm after so much shrill emotionalism and catfights among the channel's ageing, white male divas,' says Alessandra Stanley, television reviewer for the New York Times
The success of The Rachel Maddow Show has helped to position MSNBC - the cable news division of NBC - as the anti-Fox News network.
Maddow is also proving that a woman can be a big ratings draw on cable TV news. Even so, she believes her long wait for her own show was 'not only because I am gay, but because of what I look like. I am not a Barbie girl with Barbie doll-like looks.'
Despite her sudden rise to stardom, Maddow has not come out of nowhere. Since 2005, she has had her own evening show on Air America, the liberal radio network. There she established herself as a 'smiling but obstinate liberal', as she has put it. In 2006 Maddow became a regular guest political analyst on CNN and MSNBC.
'The one time Fox News ever asked me to be a guest,' she told the New York Times, 'was when Madonna made news by kissing another famous female, Britney Spears. They thought I had expertise, maybe. I said, "No, duh".'
Maddow came out as a lesbian when she was just 15. 'You have to learn to survive and prosper in a hostile environment,' she has said. At Stanford University in the early Nineties, a university newspaper noted she was one of only two openly gay freshmen. When a reporter later asked if the other gay freshman was her girlfriend, Maddow said: 'Funnily enough, only one other person was out, and she was not one of the many girls I was sleeping with.' Maddow majored in public policy and became an Aids activist. Winning a Rhodes scholarship to Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1995, she got her doctorate in political science, studying Aids and prison reform.
When she returned to America to finish her dissertation, she supported herself doing odd jobs, cleaning buckets in a coffee-bean factory and working as a handyman. That's how, in 1999, she met her girlfriend, Susan Mikula, an artist. Mikula had been looking for a 'yard boy' to help out with her house in Massachusetts.
Maddow is no knee-jerk liberal and says she is 'frequently underwhelmed' by Barack Obama. Although she believes he was right to oppose the Iraq war, 'his war policy stuff now is total bullshit. [Withdrawing] one or two brigades a month? You want your son to be in the last brigade?'
23 Comments so far
Show AllI see there are a lot of knit-picky comments here. I do not think Rachel was hired to be a liberal spokesperson. She is a talented, educated, thoughtful, witty, and likeable person who minimizes the traditional balanced approach in favor of something closer to the truth. Her comfort with herself is quite refreshing. My wife and I love her show.
I didn't really think I would like her. But, I have found myself watching her show all the way through after Keith! Except for when that old Troll Pat Buchanan is on. I can't stomach him! So I have to switch the channel while he is on.
Maddow is so unlike mainstream commentators on cable I was amazed MSNBC put her on. And wondered how long that would last. Not long, perhaps.
But she has doubled the ratings! And that serves as her insurance policy.
Having thus allowed the camel to slip its nose beneath the tent will corporate management allow more of it in? And will someone there actually have the courage and strength to speak the raw truth? Without self-negating concerns of equal balance? (For example: in the controversy between Hitler and the Jews, following today's formula for fairness, some good things would be said about the Jews and, to be balanced, good things would also have to be said about Hitler. Which is why I hate these corporate "truth squads.")
I think her show still needs a little polishing, in the good sense, such as allowing her interviews to last a little longer. She's learning, and getting the hang of things. Let's hope her corporate bosses allow her to grow.
Absolute propaganda
Once again the media decides that a moderate republican is a "liberal"
Yes, keep letting the corporations decide who our leaders are, that's how "change" will happen
I love the way Rachel stands firm in her beliefs, especially when she bitch slaps Uncle Pat !!! Wish SEAN HANNITY would shut the fuck up, he thinks his shit don't stink ! http://www.wisecountyissues.com
I don't watch her show and have tried to read her views on the web, but am getting bogged down in video clips. I'm curious where she stands on Israel, Chavez, Plan Columbia, Georgia, etc...? ED, mentioned she's not as far left as Amy Goodman, specifically where do they part ways?
Rachel IS terrific,as I know from listening to her for years on Air America Radio long before her new MSNBC TV show.
But even Rachel cannot broach the taboo subjects of U.S. imperialism, militarism, corporatism, and the arrogant, ignorant exceptionalism which underpins all those extremist ideologies.
Only a truly progressive show such as Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" does that.
News shows took a huge hit in credibility when they started making the women they put in front of the camera look like high-paid call girls. Check out The Daily Show segment called "News I Want To F***!" which "investigates" this very issue. It's hilarious and yet sadly true.
Rachel does have an appealing face, but she looks like a professional instead of an air-headed tart.
Is this all you think about?
It is when Laurie Dhue's on! LOL
Rachel Maddow is smart,intelligent,witty, and cute in a tom-boyish kind of way. She has the same impishness that initially attracted viewers to Katie Couric. Rachel knows her subject matter and never, never, never comes to the dance unprepared. I like her style, and the fact that she has a Doctorate degree only serves to give credence to her arsenal. When I first heard that MSNBC had hired Rachel Maddow I predicted then as I do now that her horizons are unlimited because her show will become the most "watched" news program on cable. I take my hat off to the "genius" at MSNBC who had the wisdom to hire her and put her on prime time; whoever you are MSNBC should move you up to top management.
Of course, as Rachel readily admits, she needs to give props to the real ice breaker...Keith Olberman. They are a good team.
Unfortunately, what the article did not mention was when Ms. Maddow, on her television program on Sept. 15, was aghast that Pakistani troops had the temerity to fire upon American soldiers when those same American soldiers illegally crossed into Pakistani territory. Nor did Ms. Maddow see fit to mention that U.S. troops had in another incident fired upon Pakistanis, killing six civilians, two of whom were children. Perhaps this is why MSNBC decided to hire this quasi liberal as they assumed, apparently with justification, that Ms. Maddow would not stand for Americans being shot at while illegally invading a sovereign country such as Pakistan.
"Maddow is no knee-jerk liberal and says she is 'frequently underwhelmed' by Barack Obama. Although she believes he was right to oppose the Iraq war, 'his war policy stuff now is total bullshit. [Withdrawing] one or two brigades a month? You want your son to be in the last brigade?'"
Um...yeah. I've never been in the military, but know that it is physically impossible to move a whole army at once. Somebody has to be last just as somebody has to be first. Also, I'll take a slow strategy over no strategy.
If this is what Maddow has to offer, I hope the left can find a better spokesperson.
"but know that it is physically impossible to move a whole army at once. "
Really ? !! It didnt take too friggin long to get in there to begin with ... why should it take so long to get the fuck out ?
See my answer above.
"I hope the left can find a better spokesperson"
Why do you ask? Was she SUPPOSED to be the spokesperson that CD left wingers must approve of?
I thought Nader was it?
Thank You
Ted Markow seems to be missing the point. Obama's phased [as opposed to immediate] withdrawal plan would take, in Obama's estimation, 16 months. Withdrawing those troops over a 16 month period should be done a hell of a lot quicker than that. Ted Markow seems to be assuming that Rachel Maddow wants to bring those troops back in a week. I do not believe anyone has ever said that they could be withdrawn that quickly. Nader's plan of bring them back in six months sounds a lot more realistic as well as addressing Ms. Maddow's point [which Marlow ignored] which is "You want your son to be in the last brigade?".
It is also imperative to point out that Obama's "withdrawal" plan is a chimera since he is advocating not only to have 32,000 to 80,000 American soldiers remain in Iraq as a residual force but he also wants the civilian contractors, which number 100,000, such as Blackwater, to remain in Iraq. All this, of course, will do nothing to convince the Iraqis that the Americans have no intention of ever leaving Iraq, despite what the [alleged] agent of hope and change tries to imply.
I think Nader's estimate is no better than Maddow's or anyone else's. I do think we need to get out of Iraq, but setting a short window may not be realistic and may make things worse.
We fucked Iraq, but we shouldn't make it worse. If Obama's estimate is too long, then we need to lean on him to shorten the window. Withdrawing troops from a hostile area is dangerous, perhaps more so than going in, seeing that we've make things so unstable. And that is the key - the area is far more unstable now than before. We shouldn't break something and leave in a hurry. There is no good solution, but making it worse by exiting stage left may be a worse one.
Now, I have no credentials in the geopolitical or military spheres. Please, those advocating for date-certain time-lines, lay your credentials out on the table and I'll gladly consider your proposals.
Thankyou, Erroll, for mentioning the 100,000 private contractor mercenaries of companies like Blackwater. At $100,000-$300,000 per, for doing the same jobs our military should be doing, and no over-fat paycheck awaiting them if they return to the states, what is their incentve to want anything other than insane McSame's hundred year occupation? The Iraq illegal war was criminl from its inception, and anyone wanting to continue this slaughter & emptying of the treasury is also criminally complicit, and that's the REAL bottom line.
“The Rachel Maddow Show” will further help define MSNBC's liberal leaning. Good show that needs a bit of polishing.
With all the right winger looneys out there in the 'supposed' left wing media (a neo-CON con-man lie) it's about time the American public had people telling the truth & raising hell about the royal shafting we've been getting these last 8-28 years by right wing extremists. Thank God for Olberman, Maddow, and even now Chris Matthews to a certain extent, the only shows besides Moyers worth spending time to watch. If you want to see truth spoken to power Google Keith Olberman's 'Special Comments'. I'm looking forward to when Maddow starts doing some, too. The people have spoken by increased ratings for MSNBC, and diminished ratings for Fox News? (Faux Noise). Not all Americans are so stupid as to believe the anti-social un-American un-Constitutional liberty-threatening big 'lies' of the right. I'm not, are you?