If you don't know by now, Rachel Maddow is the world's most unlikely cable news talk-show host. For one thing, she doesn't watch TV. And she's young (35), is a Rhodes scholar with a PhD from Oxford, and is openly gay—an industry first. (More than one friend has told me that her ascent is some consolation for the passage of California's anti-gay-marriage Prop 8.) But her combination of lefty sensibilities, a hipster vibe, wicked smarts, and genuine good cheer has taken the entire country by storm. She's made msnbc competitive against cnn's Larry King for the first time. Existing in the space between Jim Lehrer's NewsHour and Jon Stewart's Daily Show, Maddow's hour-long show privileges reporters and actual experts over pundits, real information over blather and fake fights, and comes with healthy sides of sass and sarcasm. It's a mix she learned at the left-of-center radio network Air America, where she still broadcasts a live show each weekday. In her spare time, Maddow's writing a book on the role of politics in the US military. In her other spare time, she's an enthusiast of graphic novels and mixology. An extended interview is available here.
My favorite quote from the extended interview, about Pat Buchanan:
MJ: Does he get it when introduce him with an "It's Pat!" headline?
RM: I don't know. We talk about culture stuff, and we have some overlap in terms of our tastes, but we've never talked TV shows, so I don't know if he's an SNL guy.
Heh. Enjoy.
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