I'm sharing this because I think its relevant today, even more so after her standing up to O'Reilly with a great deal of grace and very little ad hominem.

I've been a fan of Maddow for a few years now. I was delighted when she gave the commencement speech this year at my Alma Mater, Smith College, and I just wanted to gush a little about her since I've been pretty sick over the past couple of days and itching to write something.

Why Rachel Maddow scares them.

by Ellinorianne, Wed Aug 27, 2008 at 09:56:13 AM EDT

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Rachel Maddow does not hold her tongue and when she does let go, it's intelligent and painfully precise and somewhat personal. If you were watching the coverage of the first night of the Democratic Convention on MSNBC and witnessed this comment, then you know what I'm talking about (around the 2 minute mark and if you can't stand Pat, go on to 3:40).





Maddow is not afraid of who she is, this is it. Maddow is not Anderson Cooper who has dodged questions about his sexuality and yet written extensively of other aspects of his personal life (which mind you, he is perfectly right in choosing what he shares with people -Note, personal lives, regardless of orientation, do not matter to me and should not matter, Anderson Cooper HAS NOTHING TO HIDE, nor a responisbility to share anything with the world, just as Keith Olbermann has no obligation to speak of who he might be dating, etc.). Maddow has an amazing balance of who she is in that it does not eclipse anything else about her, it's balanced sanity in a "post rational" world and it's what I most admire about her.

Now think about it, Rachel is not afraid to talk about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so can you imagine having this finely focused mind covering the war with much more clarity and vigor than the entire MSM combined? Of course they're scared and it's just in time for the election where the war has to be at the forefront of our minds.

If you are like me, you enjoy the fact that Maddow leads off every hour of her show with, "News from Iraq and life during wartime". How often do we hear the mainstream media or the Administration refer to this as life during wartime? We've become insulated from the reality that this Country is at war and the consequences of this war reaches into almost every aspect of our lives (Cost of Oil, food prices, inflation, devaluation of the dollar, our inability to fight just wars such as helping the people in Darfur and so on).

So the war is merely somewhere in the back of our minds and the impact it has on our daily lives is focused on our legislators and administration. People wonder why Obama is doing better in the polls when 75% of America thinks we are going in the wrong direction. Um, that's because the people who were voted in to change things in 2006 have yet to end this war and change the path of our Country. Of course they are skeptical. (Also, my partisan friends, unlike us, the majority of Americans don't really care about political parties, they just want someone to fix this mess, Republican or Democrat. It's our job to prove to them that Democrats are much better equipped to deal with the current fiasco and that we have the intention of creating the kind of America the most of us believe is possible).

So, just imagine hearing the phrase on a nightly basis, Life during wartime. Since none of us were asked to buckle down and make sacrifices for this war we are feeling the pain has been forced upon us (Yes, the fact that this Administration has pulled back regulations on the mortgage industry and many other irresponsible fiscal policy does matter but they were able to do this with the distraction of not war but terror, the threat was enough to distract us and we were told to go out and spend, don't worry about the future, no reason to save, spend spend spend. Wow, those Chickens have come home to roost.)

Maddow talks about issues that we don't normally hear on the MSM and is much more commonly found on Air America. Maddow is going to shine the light on some very scary corners of the room that have been neglected for far too long. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this show, I'm really quite beside myself. I openly credit Maddow (And her guru David Bender) for keeping me sane during the primary's most heated moments.

And I've been a fan for a while. Why? Because Maddow has not shied away from putting right wing males in their place with her intellectual ability. Tucker Carlson's only redeeming quality was that he was smart enough to share his airtime with Maddow (and I know you cheered when she got Joe Scarborough to walk off in a huff on live television, brilliant!).





This is why Rachel Maddow scares them. She speaks her mind, she does so in a way that is without the kind of partisan venom that we are used to at Fox News and she does it with a smile on her face. Another one here, Maddow's take on us "Godless Democrats"...





And to end this, another brilliant smack down of Pat B. by Rachel Maddow. I'm telling you, I love this woman (Doesn't hurt that she got her start in radio in Northampton, MA where I went to Smith College!) I love too that you can see she's getting ready to put the hurt on Pat. "The Democratic Party stands for women". Amen sister!





Ultimately the choice MSNBC made has many implications about that Glass ceiling that we've been talking about in connection to Hillary Clinton. I believe that Maddow has also been making some cracks in that thing over the past few years and the fact that she's going to be having her own show is one of the biggest cracks in a long time for the women's movement and feminism.

Not only should we see Clinton's candidacy as a victory but also Maddow's ascension in a business of high skirts and plunging necklines as another win for all women. Now that really scares them.

And just for fun, A pootie I made for myself in 2008! It's fitting now since I've been sick. Gack.