Salon.com > Rachel Maddow http://www.salon.com Wed, 30 May 2012 06:12:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 What Rachel Maddow said http://www.salon.com/2012/04/30/what_rachel_maddow_said/ http://www.salon.com/2012/04/30/what_rachel_maddow_said/#comments Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:45:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12912440 I'm thrilled that Rachel Maddow has her own show, but I still sometimes miss her as a news-show guest. Maddow the guest always brings the facts, usually with charm, and sometimes with an edge of outrage at the behavior of her conservative sparring partners. As the host, she has to stick to charm (while still well-armed with facts) on the rare occasion she gets Republican guests on her show.

Her "Meet the Press" debate with Alex Castellanos Sunday was one for the ages. The Republican who defended calling Hillary Clinton a "white bitch" in 2008 ("Some women, by the way, are named that, and it's accurate," he told CNN's Jeffrey Toobin) tried to confound Maddow with divergent claims about whether women are paid less than men – "actually no," he insisted; then he admitted they are, but there are reasons for it. And when he couldn't confound Maddow, he condescended.

"I love how passionate you are," he told her, all but patting her on the head. "I wish you were as right about what you’re saying as you are passionate about it. I really do." Maddow shot back: "That’s really condescending. This is a stylistic issue. My passion on this issue is actually me making a factual argument on it."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/04/30/what_rachel_maddow_said/feed/ 83 Let’s have some more wars, TNR book critic says http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/lets_have_some_more_wars_tnr_book_critic_says/ http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/lets_have_some_more_wars_tnr_book_critic_says/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:48:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12678851 New Republic literary editor and guy who also for some reason regularly writes political columns Leon Wieseltier did not enjoy Rachel Maddow's latest book, everyone. He thinks it is "an anthropologically useful document of the new American disaffection with American force," by which he means it is annoyingly anti-war.

Written in the same perky self-adoring voice that makes her show so excruciating, it offers some correct observations about certain lamentable trends in the American military— its reliance on contractors, its exploitation of reservists, its surfeit of nuclear weapons; but its righteous aim is to make the use of force itself seem absurd.

You have to appreciate a literary critic who objects to the notion that war is absurd. (As for Leon Wieseltier calling out another author's "self-adoring" tone, well ... no one would ever accuse Wieseltier of being "perky," I suppose.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/lets_have_some_more_wars_tnr_book_critic_says/feed/ 62 The New Republic’s hack list equal parts fun and annoying http://www.salon.com/2011/10/19/the_new_republics_hack_list_equal_parts_fun_and_annoying/ http://www.salon.com/2011/10/19/the_new_republics_hack_list_equal_parts_fun_and_annoying/#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:21:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10127770 The New Republic is out with their "lists" issue, because everyone loves lists. Much of the material is behind a paywall (you won't know who joins Evan Bayh and Lanny David on "the sell-outs" list unless you subscribe!) but they've given us the entirety of their "over-rated thinkers" link in order to generate cheap traffic through inspiring arguments and so on.

The list is a series of capsule-sized take-downs of media and political figures said to be public intellectuals.Some targets are incredibly easy (national laughingstock Newt Gingrich), and some are quite satisfying.

On foreign policy guru/TED conman Parag Khanna: "His recent book is actually called How to Run the World. It is a self-congratulatory anthology of clichés and platitudes—the life of the mind, Davos-style." And Fareed Zakaria, "exemplary spokesman for the always-evolving middle."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/10/19/the_new_republics_hack_list_equal_parts_fun_and_annoying/feed/ 41 Maddow: Is Romney a “Gilligan’s Island” character? http://www.salon.com/2011/08/24/maddow_romney/ http://www.salon.com/2011/08/24/maddow_romney/#comments Wed, 24 Aug 2011 12:25:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/08/24/maddow_romney Much has been made this summer of Mitt Romney's bizarre rhetorical choices on the stump. First there was the comment about being "unemployed"; more recently, the declaration that "corporations are people, my friend." And those were just a few of many, as Rachel Maddow pointed out on her program last night. After reviewing all of the campaign materials, the MSNBC host couldn't help but draw a comparison between Romney and another affable, if disconnected, multimillionaire who was thrust into frequent conversation with the hoi polloi: "Gilligan's Island's" Thurston Howell III.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/08/24/maddow_romney/feed/ 11 Maddow discusses Rick Perry’s connections with a Christian conspiracy group http://www.salon.com/2011/08/11/maddow_on_perry_new_apostolic_reformation/ http://www.salon.com/2011/08/11/maddow_on_perry_new_apostolic_reformation/#comments Thu, 11 Aug 2011 11:12:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/08/11/maddow_on_perry_new_apostolic_reformation On Wednesday night Rachel Maddow discussed Texas Gov. Rick Perry's prayer event, The Response, which took place last weekend. The event "raised eyebrows," she noted, for involving pastors known for their extreme conservative views. A number of the pastors have something more in common explained Maddow:

"Many of them are part of a little-known, very specific religious and political movement... The New Apostolic Reformation."

According to a cover story in the Texas Observer this month, pastors in the movement believe themselves to be modern day prophets or apostles, directly linked to God. Their aim, explained the article author Forrest Wilder, is "to infiltrate government, and Rick Perry might be their man."

The new prophets and apostles believe Christians—certain Christians—are destined to not just take “dominion” over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the “Seven Mountains” of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world. They believe they're intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they’re leading an 'army of God' to commandeer civilian government.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/08/11/maddow_on_perry_new_apostolic_reformation/feed/ 58 Rachel Maddow loves being trashed by conservatives http://www.salon.com/2011/07/22/maddow_enjoys_conservative_mocking/ http://www.salon.com/2011/07/22/maddow_enjoys_conservative_mocking/#comments Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:23:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/07/22/maddow_enjoys_conservative_mocking In a fundraising letter this week, presidential hopeful Rick Santorum asked supporters for contributions to his campaign so that he can fight "smut" pushed by liberals like Rachel Maddow and Dan Savage -- the man behind Santorum's Google problem.

On her MSNBC show Thursday night, Maddow confessed to being flattered and amused by the name drop and fondly recalled other digs directed her way from conservatives.

She also dinged Santorum's decision to further spread the word about his Google problem in a fundraising letter, noting that, "in effect" the message told supporters "go Google the word Santorum."

Here's the clip, via MSNBC:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/07/22/maddow_enjoys_conservative_mocking/feed/ 62 Maddow feels the wrath of Obama fans http://www.salon.com/2011/06/29/maddow_obama_gay_marriage_backlash/ http://www.salon.com/2011/06/29/maddow_obama_gay_marriage_backlash/#comments Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2011/06/29/maddow_obama_gay_marriage_backlash [UPDATED]

Following the announcement on Friday of same sex marriage legalization in New York, Rachel Maddow made a comment on her MSNBC show -- a comment which invited a backlash Maddow could not have expected.

"Obama is against what just happened" she said, to express that the president had not supported marriage equality; something Maddow has pointed out numerous times. The MSNBC host is correct in so far as Obama has not lobbied in support of same sex marriage -- his so-called "evolving" position on the issue has culminated in his calling New York's vote "a good thing." But Maddow's comment invited a backlash on Twitter from Obama fans, and some of the criticism was heated.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/06/29/maddow_obama_gay_marriage_backlash/feed/ 238 “South Park” eviscerates Tyler Perry and his fans http://www.salon.com/2011/05/05/south_park_tyler_perry/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/05/south_park_tyler_perry/#comments Thu, 05 May 2011 13:24:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/05/05/south_park_tyler_perry Tyler Perry is something of a divisive figure. We've already seen Spike Lee decimate Perry in the pair's ongoing feud, and it's a well-documented fact that audiences of Tyler's extremely popular Madea series don't give a crap what Spike Lee thinks of the "coonery buffoonery."

 Last night, "South Park" gave Perry a long-awaited noogie when he showed up to accept at the school's comedy awards show. (Called "The Kathy Griffin Awards" -- how I wish those really existed.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/05/south_park_tyler_perry/feed/ 7 Rachel Maddow delivers another tutorial on Japan’s nuclear crisis http://www.salon.com/2011/03/15/rachel_maddow_daiichi_explainer/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/15/rachel_maddow_daiichi_explainer/#comments Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/03/15/rachel_maddow_daiichi_explainer The situation continues to worsen at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant. That in mind, Rachel Maddow dedicated her second segment in four days to articulating exactly what is at stake in northeastern Japan, illuminating in lay terms, the physics at work in a failing nuclear reactor. She also brought on David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, to explain the consequences of the blasts that have rocked the power plant in recent days.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/15/rachel_maddow_daiichi_explainer/feed/ 26 Rachel Maddow explains Japan’s nuclear emergency http://www.salon.com/2011/03/12/rachel_maddow_japan_nuclear_emergency/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/12/rachel_maddow_japan_nuclear_emergency/#comments Sat, 12 Mar 2011 21:55:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/03/12/rachel_maddow_japan_nuclear_emergency The world watches with rapt attention as the disaster in Japan stretches into its second day. What began as shock and concern for those impacted by yesterday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake, and subsequent tsunami, was quickly displaced by mounting fear that the island nation could be on the brink of a nuclear disaster. A massive explosion rocked the Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Fukushima early this morning, raising concerns of an imminent meltdown. Officials say the reactor was not affected by the blast, and radiation levels are now decreasing. However, it's still unclear how great the threat of nuclear emergency is. 

That in mind, Rachel Maddow devoted a portion of her program last night to explaining, in lay terminology, how nuclear power plants operate and what could trigger a meltdown. She also brought on physicist Edwin Lyman from the Union of Concerned Physicists to elaborate on the specific threats posed by the situation in Japan.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/12/rachel_maddow_japan_nuclear_emergency/feed/ 25 Bill Clinton peeved that Rachel Maddow called him a Republican http://www.salon.com/2010/09/14/clinton_maddow/ http://www.salon.com/2010/09/14/clinton_maddow/#comments Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/09/14/clinton_maddow The Democrats, as usual, are still fighting the internecine party battles of the '90s. While Jerry Brown struggles with the 1992 presidential primaries out in California, Bill Clinton is attacking a prominent liberal critic and defending his legacy of triangulation.

At a joint appearance with former British prime minister and warmonger Tony Blair, Clinton complained about MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (without naming her) for, basically, telling the truth about his presidency.

"One of the leading television commentators on one of our liberal cable channels said I was the best Republican president the country ever produced, which would come [as] quite a surprise to the Republicans, half of whom still think I’m a closet communist," Clinton said during an appearance with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/09/14/clinton_maddow/feed/ 64 Steve Kornacki on “Rachel Maddow Show” http://www.salon.com/2010/08/31/kornacki_maddow/ http://www.salon.com/2010/08/31/kornacki_maddow/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:32:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/08/31/kornacki_maddow

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/08/31/kornacki_maddow/feed/ 8 Friday link dump: Maine’s crown princesses http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/friday_link_dump_9/ http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/friday_link_dump_9/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/07/16/friday_link_dump
  • Quote of the day, from outgoing Congressman David Obey: "They wanted to hold [the stimulus] to less than $1 trillion. Then [Pennsylvania Senator Arlen] Specter and the two crown princesses from Maine [Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins] took it down to less than $800 billion. Spread over two and a half years, that’s a hell of a lot of money, but spread over two and a half years in an economy this large, it doesn’t have a lot of fiscal power."
  • David Vitter, who is an asshole, has apologized to Rachel Maddow for making a sexist crack about her appearance this morning.
  • The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is terrified of an upcoming major Dana Priest story about intelligence contractors.
  • Dave Weigel sums up the stupid coverage of the Romney/Palin "spat".
  • For some reason, senators don't want to comment on the John Stagliano obscenity trial.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/07/16/friday_link_dump_9/feed/ 1     Rand Paul takes outdated stance on segregation http://www.salon.com/2010/05/20/rand_paul_maddow_segregation_open2010/ http://www.salon.com/2010/05/20/rand_paul_maddow_segregation_open2010/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 12:21:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2010/05/20/rand_paul_maddow_segregation_open2010 It seems as though Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Kentucky, son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, and self-proclaimed representative of the Tea Party movement, has some serious difficulty explaining his approach to questions of race and civil rights. During an appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, Paul started by saying that he liked civil rights and opposed discrimination; he even claimed he would have marched with Martin Luther King had he been old enough. However, he suggested that he would seek to end the parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that required privately-owned businesses that served the public to desegregate. Just as Paul was misrepresenting his ability to join the 1963 March on Washington (he was born in 1963), he was also attempting the impossible feat of appropriating King’s legacy while arguing for dismantling one of the movement’s most substantive victories.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/05/20/rand_paul_maddow_segregation_open2010/feed/ 45     Rachel Maddow demolishes Rand Paul http://www.salon.com/2010/05/20/rachel_maddow_demolishes_rand_paul/ http://www.salon.com/2010/05/20/rachel_maddow_demolishes_rand_paul/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 01:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh//politics/2010/05/19/rachel_maddow_demolishes_rand_paul Kentucky GOP Senate nominee Rand Paul is squirming under the bright lights of national media attention since he toppled Mitch McConnell's handpicked candidate Trey Grayson Tuesday night. On Wednesday, an interview he gave to the Louisville Courier-Journal, in which he seemed to say he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, hit the Internet and cable television. Wednesday night MSNBC's Rachel Maddow interviewed him and tried to get him to clarify his remarks, and Paul tried to talk his way out of siding with the terrible folks who wouldn't let black students sit at those Southern lunch counters in 1960.

    But Paul basically sided with the terrible folks. The Tea Party hero said he thought the Civil Rights Act was fine when it came to desegregating public institutions, but not private businesses. He called the issue of desegregating lunch counters "obscure," and implied the First Amendment gave business owners the right to be racist.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/05/20/rachel_maddow_demolishes_rand_paul/feed/ 472     Rachel Maddow tears Breitbart’s ACORN tapes apart http://www.salon.com/2010/04/07/rachel_maddow_acorn_tapes/ http://www.salon.com/2010/04/07/rachel_maddow_acorn_tapes/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:08:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/04/07/rachel_maddow_acorn_tapes On Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow put a definitive end to the story -- pushed by Fox News Channel for six months -- that the "exposé" of ACORN by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles on Andrew Breitbart's Web site showed the group involved in nefarious deeds. Using the unedited tapes released by California Attorney General Jerry Brown of O'Keefe and Giles's visits to ACORN offices in the state, Maddow showed the vast gulf between the conservative version of the "scandal" and reality.

    Watch here:

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/04/07/rachel_maddow_acorn_tapes/feed/ 223     Why is reality so liberally biased against J.D. Hayworth? http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/maddow_hayworth/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/maddow_hayworth/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2010/03/16/maddow_hayworth Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., was on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show" Monday night. He talked with Maddow about a few different things -- one of them, of course, his recent comments about same-sex marriage leading to marriage between people and horses, which he tried to defend. It didn't go well.

    As I noted in my post on the subject yesterday, Hayworth's whole premise was faulty, as it started from a quote that just plain doesn't exist. He said that when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, it defined marriage as simply "the establishment of intimacy." In fact, that phrase never appears in the court's decision.

    Maddow, too, called Hayworth on this, and he didn't have an answer. Instead, he went a sort of post-modern route:

    MADDOW: [W]hat you said about the establishment of intimacy being the definition of marriage in Massachusetts, I don't think it's true, sir.

    HAYWORTH: Well, that's fine. You and I can have a disagreement about that.

    MADDOW: Well, it either is true or it isn't. It's empirical.

    HAYWORTH: OK. OK.

    MADDOW: All right.

    HAYWORTH: Well, I appreciate the fact that we have a disagreement on that.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/maddow_hayworth/feed/ 23     Why don’t the powerful get grilled like this? http://www.salon.com/2009/12/09/maddow_2/ http://www.salon.com/2009/12/09/maddow_2/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:10:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald//2009/12/09/maddow (updated below)

    Rachel Maddow today is receiving well-deserved praise for a devastating interview she conducted last night with Richard Cohen, an "ex-homosexual" therapist who is head of the "International Healing Foundation," which purportedly helps gay people become straight.  Cohen's rancid slander against gay people (they're a threat to children, etc.), masquerading as "research," is being used by advocates of a proposed law in Uganda that would allow the state to execute homosexuals.  The 17-minute interview is worth watching if you want to see how an extremely smart and well-prepared interrogator can absolutely destroy a guest who is brazenly spouting baseless claims and patent falsehoods (the video is also posted below). 

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2009/12/09/maddow_2/feed/ 423     Fighting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” http://www.salon.com/2009/05/08/dan_choi/ http://www.salon.com/2009/05/08/dan_choi/#comments Fri, 08 May 2009 14:51:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//feature/2009/05/08/dan_choi On March 19, 1st Lt. Dan Choi, an infantry leader with the New York Army National Guard, appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and stated, "I am gay." Choi is a West Point graduate, Iraq combat veteran, and Arabic language specialist. He is also a founding member of the independent organization Knights Out, a group of LGBT West Point alumni who, in openly declaring their sexuality, are actively fighting against the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

    Thursday night, Choi returned to Maddow's studio (video below) to explain the repercussions he's experienced since then. To no one's surprise, Choi has been asked to withdraw from the Army National Guard. Maddow showed pieces of the letter sent to Choi, which stated, "You admitted publicly that you are a homosexual, which constitutes homosexual conduct ... Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard."

    Choi explained that he can resign and receive honorable discharge or fight the action, which is what he intends to do.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2009/05/08/dan_choi/feed/ 13     The weirdest Rachel Maddow interview ever http://www.salon.com/2009/03/12/rachel_maddow/ http://www.salon.com/2009/03/12/rachel_maddow/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:08:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet//feature/2009/03/12/rachel_maddow Vanity Fair's interviewer George Wayne isn't exactly known for being on-point. Or sane. No, G.W. is an old-school queen who fancies himself Oscar Wilde, refers to himself in the third person and tosses out sexual overtures generally reserved for a five-martini blackout, all of which makes for schticky, love-em-or-hate-em interviews you won't read anywhere else. But this month's Q&A with Rachel Maddow is a special kind of crazy. We begin semi-normally enough:

    Now here you are, the most famous television dyke, well, since Dinah Shore!

    Ellen and Rosie are more famous.

    You are the smartest. What thought crossed your mind when you first shook the hand of potus 44? Was it "Wow, your ears are really big"?

    No, it was more like "Boy, he's relaxed. He's as cool as a cucumber." He is like this incredible center of cool.

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    ]]>     http://www.salon.com/2009/03/12/rachel_maddow/feed/ 26