Rachel Maddow

At 35 Rachel Maddow has achieved significant success with the advent of the new “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC. After proving herself for several months as a guest analyst, and regular guest host, on Countdown, Keith Olbermann’s nightly show, and also appearing as a panelist on several other MSNBC shows and events, not to mention her hugely successful Air America radio show (which continues), she was given the honor of her own chair on the cable network set.

Her first show was, not surprisingly, a little choppy, but it didn’t take her second show for her to find her balance. By the end of the first week she was already seeming like an old hand and was getting exceptional, and fully deserved, ratings. Rachel brought a fresh approach, and new insight, to the terribly cookie-cutter similarity of the cable news show scene. MSNBC has struggled to fill this slot (9:00 p.m. eastern) with such failures as Dan Abram’s Verdict and Tucker Carlson’s lowest rated show.

Maddow says she is “a liberal” and “not a partisan” and not a “Democratic Party hack”. She says she is not trying to advance anyone’s agenda. She does seem to speak her own mind and she does bring — at least so far — a refreshing list of guests to explore, and shine a new light on, the same topics that are current on most of the other shows.

One thing that caught my attention is the regular appearance of her “Dutch Uncle” as Maddow refers to him, Republican mouthpiece and former presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan. It should be noted that in 1992 Buchanan spoke at the Republican National Convention calling for a “culture war” against liberal concepts including the idea of homosexual rights. Maddow was 19 at the time and had just come out of the closet.

On the Monday night of this year’s convention where Maddow was a panalist for the MSNBC coverage, she recalled her experience telling Buchanan, who sat on her left in the same panel, that she was drawn to the Clinton family in 1992 because “they didn’t want an America that doesn’t want me in it.” Buchanan, looking a little uncomfortable, had no response.

Despite many regular pundits seeing another failure ahead for MSNBC, I am one who believes Maddow can, and will, pull it off as she claims the 9 p.m. slot for her own. If you haven’t seen her show yet, it really is, I think, an hour worth spending.