Being Easter Sunday and all that, I felt redemption for something I wrote in passing reference about Rachel Maddow. I called the MSNBC cable news hostess a “liberal flame thrower.”
Maddow is, yes, a liberal. The “flame thrower” element is a description applied by Fox’s Bill O’Reilly for anyone on the left of which he disagrees.
I’m in agreement with Ms. Maddow more often than not.
As is so often the case, the post in question mentioned Maddow once in a critical review of MSNBC’s new primetime host Ed Schultz. The comments from readers on The Moderate Voice and my own blog all chastised me for my Maddow characterization.
I stand corrected.
From a pure journalistic perspective, Maddow is the best interviewer on television since the death of Tim Russert.
A Rhodes scholar, she does her homework. Her producers have the intelligence to allow her enough time to probe deep into a guest’s responses. In this regard, she’s a bulldog. She’s relentless. And she carries it out in a low-key professional manner. No yelling and insulting ala O’Reilly and his sidekick Sean Hannity.
Furthermore, Maddow is an excellent teacher. She can grasp a complex subject such as the budget reconciliation bill and explain it in language a fifth grader can understand. I’m a political junkie and not embarrassed to admit how much I learned about the U.S. Senate’s 60-vote majority cloister rule after listening to Maddow’s explanation.
She also offers provocative guests, experts in their fields, one seldom sees on MSNBC, CNN or Fox. Maddow is not a Washington Beltway protege which works to her advantage.
When she sticks to politics or relative substantive issues, Maddow is on firm ground even if one disagrees with her slants, angles and any other agendas on her platter.
And, unlike most TV hosts, she not only apologizes for errors or misstatements from previous shows, she corrects “mischaracterizations” as was the case of describing Colin Powell as “uncomfortable” with a series of questions she asked the former Secretary of State. Powell said that wasn’t the case, she reported the following day.
She does tend to be a little prissy with those “Holy Mackerel” stories. The “GOP In Exile” and the show’s concluding segment are fluffy time killers, but, by and large, she offers an informative and entertaining show.
“The Rachel Maddow Show” is like a fine wine. It grows on you.
Cross posted on The Remmers Report
Jerry Remmers worked 26 years in the newspaper business. His last 23 years was with the Evening Tribune in San Diego where assignments included reporter, assistant city editor, county and politics editor.