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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow ended 2009 by promising to do more of the same kind of show in 2010. Maddow admitted that her show has found its niche, which is shedding light on the money and power relationships that make the right wing tick. Check out the video.

Here is the video:

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Maddow not only provided the traditional yearend clip segment, but also tied it together with a little history lesson that went back to the John Birch Society. Her point was the right’s 2009 tactics are nothing new, “These tactics don`t go away. The fringe doesn`t go away in American politics. American politics have always run all the way through the margins, right to the edge of the page and beyond. We always have been like that as a country. And bully for us.”

She continued, 2009 proved that as the Republican Party sought its path out of the political wilderness, the Republican Party was going to look to the right-wing fringe for help. And we decided on this show to help America take a good look at that fringe.”

Maddow promised more of the same for 2010, “I`m proud of the investigatory work that we have done on this show and the great producers and staff here who work their butts off that allow us to do it. In 2010, we`re going to keep shining a light on the preposterousness in our political mix because we think it`s the right thing to do for the country. And because it`s really, really fun. We hope you`ll keep enjoying it, too.”

I think Maddow was being a bit modest about her show. Her program has not only found a niche, but it has become the only program in primetime cable news that attempts to educate its viewers on the nuances and relationships between wealth, ideology, power, and politics. Maddow and her staff have discovered a way of accomplishing their mission, while still entertaining their viewers.

Many people who don’t watch MSNBC lump Maddow and Keith Olbermann together, but the difference between the two shows is night and day. Olbermann is content to bluster, bellow, and entertain. Olbermann spends more time mocking the right wing and their media than he does on issues and politics, unless he is offering his opinions on issues and politics.

Olbermann is entertaining, but I wish MSNBC would follow the path that Maddow is laying out. The network is chalked full of hosts who opine and yell. (Matthews, Schultz, Olbermann to name three). It would be great to have more programming on cable news in general that assumes a lower key while attempting to inform, not just entertain. Information and entertainment are not mutually exclusive.

H/T: Crooks and Liars