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There is new conservative conspiracy floating around that claims Rachel Maddow is really running MSNBC, and that Maddow got Martin Bashir fired.

National Review Online reported,

Few, though, suspect that Harris-Perry will suffer the same fate as her less fortunate colleagues, and MSNBC declined to comment on the matter. That’s because Harris-Perry is part of Maddow’s in-crowd, the liberal, wonkish elite now ascendant at MSNBC. Sources say it is Maddow rather than Phil Griffin who provides MSNBC’s editorial direction, and that she also holds considerable sway over personnel decisions. “I know I’m never going to get freakin’ talking points from Phil,” Maddow told The New Yorker last year. “Can you imagine? Like, what would they be?” Behind her back, colleagues call her “the queen,” a not so subtle suggestion that Maddow gets what Maddow wants. And what she wants is a network filled with young wonks such as Chris Hayes, Ezra Klein, Alex Wagner, and Harris-Perry, whose highbrow intellectualism can, she hopes, push the Democratic party, and the country, to the left. On Twitter, Harris-Perry’s show proudly uses the hashtag #nerdland. Alex Wagner’s move to the 4 p.m. hour, where Bashir’s show once aired, has Maddow’s fingerprints on it. Griffin, who came of age as a sports producer at CNN and then as a booker on the Today show, is, according to a former colleague, “utterly non-ideological.” “He makes decisions,” says the former colleague, “based on 30-day trailing numbers” and lacks a strategic vision. Maddow, who came aboard in 2008, has filled the ideological void. “Alec Baldwin and Martin were outliers; they weren’t part of her inner circle,” says a television insider. “Bashir’s contract was up, he was twisting in the wind when this happened, and he was out of sync with Rachel’s ideology.

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Maddow responded with a strong denial of the claims in the story, “This is categorically false. I have never had any role in any management decision at MSNBC. Any source who says otherwise is wrong.”

The NRO piece was based the premise that Maddow is the secret powerful ideologue who is really running the show at MSNBC. The story made a lot of claims that were not backed up with named sources, and was generally consumed by baseless speculation. The point of the article was to blame Maddow for all of MSNBC’s recent problems. Much of the article quoted unnamed sources, but the most unbelievable claim was that Maddow let Martin Bashir get fired/resigned from MSNBC.

The underlying point appeared to be that Sarah Palin didn’t get Bashir fired. Rachel Maddow did. Sarah Palin had nothing to do with Bashir’s departure. According to NRO, Maddow deserves the blame. If Bashir had been in Maddow’s inner circle, he would not have lost his job. In this tall tale, Sarah Palin was an innocent victim of Rachel Maddow’s quest to transform America with an ideological wonk army.

Maddow is the new progressive monster under the bed for conservatives. She is apparently all powerful, and out to transform America into a liberal utopia. Don’t believe the lamestream media, Republicans. Sarah Palin and her racist agenda aren’t the problem. The real threats to the American way of life are Rachel Maddow and MSNBC.