The Rachel Maddow Show

The Rachel Maddow show is excellent. When she's there! Which isn't very often I honestly don't think a week goes by that she's nowhere to be found for at least part of that week. As of this writing, she's been gone for an entire week and that's in addition to multiple days she's been MIA during the last several months.

Hopefully, her health is good and that's not the reason that she now works part-time. What's ironic is that her mentor and benefactor, Keith Olbermann (whom she promptly forgot she knew once she had her own show and he was let go by NBC) pulled the same nonsense. There one day, gone two...there a full week, gone the next week.

What is it about Phil Griffin that he allows such liberties to be taken by these multi-million dollar part-timers? Maybe he's not there either and doesn't know that he's got hosts who consider it a right and not a privilege to be handsomely paid for so very little air time!

Rachel Maddow is brilliant, well educated, very hard working and just a nice person. It shows in all her work. If you want to hear the news that is important she scours all the major news sources for the stories and homes in on the stuff that really matters. Her commentary is erudite and daring. She takes on the B.S. fearlessly and is expert in adding context that shows up deception, spin and hypocrisies. She is humble enough to admit when she is reporting something outside her area of expertise and readily admits it when she makes mistakes. To top it all off she has a goofy-gentle sense of humor that makes the news fun. If all newscasters were as good as her we would live in a country that really would be a shining beacon on the hill.

Rachel is the real deal. She FAR exceeds any other talking head in acumen and intelligence, and actually puts in the grueling hours and painstaking research required to earn her very impressive "truth percentage rating" in comparison to the tabloid noise we see on FOX and CNN. But, as with any minority voice that seeks to wade through the morass that is American politics, MSNBC is NOT being awarded by the American viewership for its decision and daring to remain THE Progressive Voice for this country. Alas, those that at least try to find truth are NEVER popular. Nor are those who chuckle at the AMAZING amount of base ignorance that resides in rural RED State America.

No, MSNBC is struggling...and likely will continue to suffer low viewership numbers and "ratings", because of an important difference that sets them apart from CNN and FOX: their ongoing refusal to rely on an old, reliable "news" approach that seeks to grab attention and evoke an emotional response.

MSNBC's level of fear-based PANDERING is lower than other networks. Thank GOD for that.

Rachel and MSNBC are both undeniably partisan, and just as determined to get their message out as FOX or CNN....but they resort LESS to pedantic and immature fear-mongering to try and sway opinion, and are sometimes the ONLY Cable News Network to avoid being drawn into aiming to stir our predictable, human base impulses or sling silly and crass American myths and legend out to the public masqueraded as truth and "patriotism." The recent Ebola-driven events that all news agencies breathlessly covered as it arrived in America are a clear example of the distinction MSNBC supplies when it comes to panic-stirring. MSNBC's stubborn refusal to denigrate the CDC wrongly, or to create unwarranted fear and panic by endorsing what NEVER remotely presented any threat to average Americans is what exemplifies courage in reporting the news.

What you won't find on Rachel's Show are "are YOU a REAL American" or "are you PATRIOTIC enough" litmus tests that remind historians of 1933 Germany and the Nazi Party's Goebbelized approach to using demonization of a particular demographic in order to summon up a mythical Bogieman and then drive a false, fear-based pandered narrative.

Rachel Maddow IS MSNBC....the network's main political taproot, and the major attraction. She has had to overcome the continual myopic and silly RIGHT-WING's hate-driven anti-gay narrative, and their cadre of childish sexual stereotyping that seems so common, emanating from the hetero haters in the world.

Rachel has responded to adversity and challenges with the utmost class and authority, and despite the Right's blatant sexism and misogyny, Rachel has emerged as a hero among both normally-adjusted heterosexuals and gays, alike. All of the FOX News nasty asides and envy-driven criticism of Rachel has only exposed the crank-call maturity level that sane Americans ascribe to all folks foolish enough to spew sexual- orientation-based personalized attacks.

Bottom Line: Rachel's approach to informing Americans is fact-based, accepts challenges when they are warranted, provides humility and story revision when mistakes are made or discovered.

As the Huffington Post recently remarked: "We would be lost without Rachel Maddow. Indeed!

(Note: Reviewer is an older, White, straight Independent male)

So bad. Unfortunate too, because Rachel seems to be smart and insightful. But this show only shows her as a smirking snarky unpleasant would-be commentator. But she might as well have little pebbles in her pockets and just chuck them at pictures of her betes noir.

When she was a guest on various an MSNBC show (a far left show -- please, so far left), she was sometimes charming, even funny. Even if one didn't agree.

Now? Grief. Things for her and MSNBC have come off the tracks. She's not as funny as Ann Coulter in the latter's writing, not as attractive as Michelle Malkin, and no longer as witty as (fill in the blank here) as just about anyone else on TV. It's such a waste, she could have been so GOOD.

A smirk while one completely distorts the day's news, doesn't compliment either conservative or liberal. And poor Rachel, I have to believe that the powers at MSNBC provided a dictat, as the left is inclined to do, to force her to forget about actually providing all the facts.

And she is really kind of cute too. I like her. But she unfortunately deserves her place at the bottom of the ratings.

Perhaps one consolation, or at least sort of appealing factor, is that isn't as harsh, mean, cynical, and juvenile as Keith Olbermann, who at this point precedes her on the MSNBC nightly line up. She has the same subject matter, but usually just smirks with a smile, while Olbermann smirks with a nasty snarl. Neither is effective, but she's at least sort of engaging, while the latter is a nattering fool.

"The Rachel Maddow Show" is no "Democracy Now!" - there are things that which Rachel Maddow resists discussing - but it's infinitely better than anything on Fox News (aka Fox Noise and Faux News). Maddow clearly does research in her reporting. The criticism of the show is usually either that it's a partisan show, or emphasizes Rachel Maddow's lesbianism and physical appearance. This is not an argument, but rather an ad hominem attack. Even if it's a partisan show, Maddow DOES interview people with opposing viewpoints, namely Pat Buchanan (the surprise is that ultra-bigot Buchanan is willing to be in the same room as a liberal Jewish lesbian). But most importantly, TRMS is an intellectual show: it includes segments about scientific topics, including environmental issues. I consider it a good show.