Reality Check with Rachel Maddow
by Robert Nesti
Looking for a fresh way to start
your morning? It may be time to give Air America a chance, specifically
the Rachel Maddow Show that airs on
this liberal talk show network from 7 to 9am. (Locally she’s heard on 1430AM
/ WXKS and1200AM / WKOX, or streamed from the Air America website.)
Maddow,
who broadcasts from New York, offers a highly
informed, unabashedly left wing, and at times cheeky look at the current
political situation. Along with comic sidekick Kent Jones, Maddow rigorously exposes the big lies of the current
administration, and does so with a warm enthusiasm that will prepare you for
any water cooler debates that you encounter over your day.
The 33 year-old Maddow and her
partner Susan Mikula split their time between their
home outside of Northampton
and a small apartment in New York, where her weekday
workday begins at 2am. She also recently completed a stint on Tucker
Carlson’s MSNBC show The Situation with Tucker Carlson in which she could be
seen debating the shaggy-haired, bow-tied conservative on a weekly basis.
EDGE spoke to her recently about her radio show, her passion for politics,
and her revisionist view of Vice President Dick Cheney.
EDGE: What is like having to be at work
so early in the morning?
Rachel Maddow: It blows. I’ve been doing it for more than a year and you never
get use [sic] to it. Even if you’re a person who thinks of themselves as a
night person, around 4am you want to go to bed. That’s when I’m having my
news meeting and things are kicking into gear. It’s a very strange,
alienating lifestyle.
EDGE: Really? That doesn’t show in your
broadcast. You are so enthusiastic and aware of so many things - you are one
of the brightest people in the media.
Rachel Maddow: That’s nice for you to say. I’m not live in New York
until 7am, but I go in at 2 am because it takes an incredible amount of time
to prep every show. The rule of thumb in talk radio is that you prep for one
hour for every hour on the air, and we do five hours for two hours, which is
obscene.
EDGE: It shows in the show. You cover so
much, and have so much information at the tip of your fingertips ...
Rachel Maddow: We are trying to do a news show that is good enough that if
people listen to us they don’t miss NPR, they don’t miss 1010 WIN, they don’t
miss whatever else they go to for news; but they also have more fun because
they are listening to us.
EDGE: Which brings up
the change in where people are getting their news. Your show is also
often very funny - you have Kent Brown who gives the show a Daily Show-edge.
The Daily Show is one of the outlets that has become
a new source in the past few years, along with Fox News. Do you think where
we are getting our news has changed?
Rachel Maddow: Kent Jones is a former Daily Show writer, and I’m incredibly
lucky to have him. He’s very funny and makes great jokes, and is very Daily
Show-esque; but the funny thing is that he’s not
making things up. He’s giving real information, so even the funny part of the
show is informational and newsy. I think the popularity of Fox News, for all
I disagree with them about, has made it okay to get information that you know
is coming from a person with an opinion. I am definitely a liberal, I am
someone coming from the left when I give my opinion; but I am also credible.
I am a person who does my homework and gives real information. What the Daily
Show has giving us is a willingness for people to understand stuff better if
it’s explained to them in a way that’s more entertaining. You get more
engaged when things if you’re laughing and entertained. It doesn’t have to be
made up to be real funny. The world is real funny right now. Bush in Germany talking about his ’wild boar barbeque’
while the Middle East is blowing up is funny
- it’s terrifying, but it has a really funny edge to it.
EDGE: Do you think the way to counter
Fox News is not to get mad, but to get even?
Rachel Maddow: Yes. No one is making anyone watch them. They are winning the cable
news ratings by a lot because they figured out a way to make people watch
them. People like the idea that they can get their news from a place with a
definite opinion. They failed for a lot of years, but Rupert Murdoch was
willing to throw millions of dollars their way before his idea became
marketable and they made those high ratings. So we should take advantage of
that opinionated news niche that they’ve carved out. They represent a
minority opinion in this country, but people watch them because they are
entertaining. I think we are both entertaining and people agree with us. So
we are at an advantage. We just need to let people find out about us.
EDGE: We seem very
divided as a nation these days. Has the country become too polarized?
Rachel Maddow: The country has always been polarized. Senators in the 1800s use
to come to blows on the floor of the Senate and have duels. George Washington
fretted about the rise of the political parties - he thought that they would
destroy America.
We’ve always been at each other’s throats; the question is whether or not
we’re true to what makes this country this country. The one real problem is
the willingness of those on the Right to walk away from the Constitution.
That’s the big threat. I feel like Constitutional loyalists - left, right,
and center - are upset about that, and see it as an extreme position. I think
that extremism threatens America
more than polarization.
EDGE: One of the most disturbing aspects
of the Bush Presidency is his attempt to change the balance of power. Do you
see this as a threat to democracy?
Rachel Maddow: Yes. The President is now asserting power to overrule the courts
and the Congress. That is not American. In terms of balance between the right
and the left - that’s a fight. The Republicans will win sometime, the
Democrats will win sometimes; that’s something I’m much less worried about
than this changing of the structure of the government, changing what it means
to be President. That’s bigger than Right and Left, that’s a coup d’état.
That’s threatening the Republic; not just people I disagree with.
EDGE: What’s refreshing about your
outlook is that you take the bigger picture on issues. You have more global
approach to looking at things.
Rachel Maddow: Everyone picks issues that moves them,
and I pick issues that portray the bigger issue stuff. I’m 33, and I remember
those little Civic jingles that use to run on Saturday mornings. ("I’m
just a bill/and I’m sitting here on Capital Hill") When I see those, I
get misty. I’m a total wuss for Civics. And
the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Supreme Court. When I walk by the Supreme
Court, I choke up. I have this super-geek-factor-total-nerdy love affair with
the patriotic symbols of American government, because what we have is really
amazing, so the stuff that moves me is not necessarily the attack on gay
marriage (though that moves me too.) The stuff that moves me more profoundly
is when the President says he doesn’t have to follow the laws that Congress
makes. Wait a minute, now you’re messing with my Constitution. That hits me
close to the bone. I recognize that I’m a total Civics geek - I’m a big nerd
for this stuff. That drives my passion and the things I get interested in,
and what makes me the most angry about the current
state of politics.
EDGE: How do you keep your sense of
humor?
Rachel Maddow: I see the absurdity in a lot of what people I disagree with tend
to do. It’s absurd that Rick Santorum has a gay spokesperson. Rick Santorum
himself is not hilarious. Rick Santorum is a nightmare; but the fact that he
has gay spokesperson is hilarious. I feel that this spokesperson is pitiful.
I feel kind of sad for him, but I also laugh at him. Did you ever hear
Santorum? He’s the man who says that what you do to show your love of
somebody, or what you do when you have sex, is the equivalent of a person
abusing a dog. Why would a gay person work for this guy? That he goes to work
every day and smiles and try to put the best face on is absurd. I feel sad
for him as a person, but politically that’s absolutely absurd.
EDGE: David Brock was like that at one
point -
Rachel Maddow: Yes, but David Brock did the right thing. He moved from right to
left, then wrote a tell-all book about what was
wrong about where it had been. If all right wingers would do that, I would be
happy.
EDGE: You use an audio clip of Rush
Limbaugh saying ’Has anybody ever heard of Rachel Maddow’
on your show. How did that come about?
Rachel Maddow: I was on Joe Scarborough’s show on MSNBC, and he was trying to
get me to condemn a Democrat who had compared what was going on in prisoner
abuse with the ’just following orders’ defense that Nazis gave during the
Second World War. I said, yes, I agree that Democrats shouldn’t make
comparisons with Nazis when they’re talking about American politics; but I
wasn’t just going to condemn Democrats for that; Republicans do it all the
time. Rush Limbaugh still calls feminist ’femi-Nazis;’
and I used that as an example; and he took me to task on his radio show.
EDGE: What would you say to him if you
could speak to him, or would you speak to him? That is, has the debate become
so toxic that are there some people you just can’t be civil with?
Rachel Maddow: I would feel
that I would have a hard time being civil to Donald Rumsfeld
and Anthony Scalia. I pick them out because they have such disdain for things
I care about. In Scalia case, it’s the constitution and the protection of
civil rights; in Rumsfeld, I think he’s destroying
the military. The people that participate in the military are volunteers; and
you have to be circumspect about how you use them; not just toss them about
like rice at a wedding party. They have been so uncivil and nasty in the way
they cavalierly undermined the stuff I care about that their incivility would
make it hard for me to be anything but sarcastic and nasty to them. I don’t
think I could interview them. Someone like Dick Cheney or Condie
[sic] Rice or George Bush or Rush Limbaugh I could interview ...
EDGE: You could talk to Cheney?
Rachel Maddow: Sure. The big thing about Cheney is that - I don’t find Cheney
scary. He has a scary agenda, but people don’t give him credit for is how
incompetent he is. Everything the guy has touched as turned to merde. The guy has an incredible record of
incompetence. When he was the CEO of Halliburton, his big decision was to buy
Dresser Industries. As soon as they bought them, Dresser Industries became a
multi-billion dollar liability due their asbestos claims. Everyone thinks of
him as a mastermind, but he just a guy with bad ideas and bad execution of
them. Everything he is doing in this White House power-grab and the expansion
of Executive power has been done so poorly, so ham-handed. He surrounds
himself with such ignorant sycophants that it’s all going to be overturned
even before he gets out of office. Dick Cheney gets far too much credit than
he deserves.
EDGE: You mean the President actually
picked someone as incompetent as himself to be his vice president?
Rachel Maddow: Yes, and Cheney gets far too much credit
for being in control. I think his legacy is going to be the exact opposite of
what he is doing. He is trying to turn the Presidency back into a monarchy,
but he’s doing it so stupidly and so transparently that he’s turning
conservatives away from him, not to mention liberals and Democrats. His
legacy is going to be a reversal of what he’s trying to do. He wasn’t sly
enough. He’s not slick enough.
EDGE: If you had one question to ask
President Bush, what would it be?
Rachel Maddow: What was the most important thing you learned from being a male
cheerleader at Yale? No one talks about him being a cheerleader at Yale; but
I think it was crucial in his training to be President.
EDGE: Do you think the Valerie Plame Wilson civil lawsuit has a chance?
Rachel Maddow: I do. What’s really important is that if this lawsuit is allowed
to go ahead, they have so much more leeway to ask questions and ferret around
what they need to know than Patrick Fitzgerald did. And the Republicans,
because they are idiots, set a precedent with the Paula Jones case that
people can sue the President of the United States. (Remember, that
was the case that made Ann Coulter famous.) They won’t be constrained. They
can go after Cheney, Bush, Karl Rove. It’s going to
be a big deal.
EDGE: So we will learn who the sources
are?
Rachel Maddow: Yes. I don’t think it will be a surprise. I mean it’s not that
many people it can be. It’s entirely possible that Cheney or Bush could be
one of the sources. The question is how much will be disclosed in the course
of this lawsuit that will make them do things that are more desperate. This
isn’t just sex with an intern, this is outing a spy. This is national
security stuff. This is treason. This is stuff about the health of the
country. This isn’t the Paula Jones case; it’s not the Monica Lewinsky case.
If this lawsuit goes ahead, it will put them in a real desperate situation,
and that’s when people show their true colors.
EDGE: Aren’t you nostalgic for a little
stain on a dress?
Rachel Maddow: I know. Exactly. Remember when our biggest worry was, did the
President lie about sex?
EDGE: Ann Coulter is pretty loathsome,
but she manages to control the debate in her own, insane way. Should there be
a counterpart for her on the left?
Rachel Maddow: Do you want one?
EDGE: No, not someone as rabid; but my
point is that there’s no leftist counterweight to her.
Rachel Maddow: Air America
should get more credit for being that than we do. I’m not like that, but
Randi Rhodes and Sam Seder are out there. Mike Malloy, in particular, is very
good. They hit as hard as anyone on the Right, but do it with a little more
truth. I would like to be as successful as Rush Limbaugh, but I wouldn’t want
to live with his conscience. We don’t want to be tools of the Republican
Party; and we’re not tools of the Democrats.
EDGE: What do you think of Keith Olbermann and the Countdown phenomena?
Rachel Maddow: I have such respect for Keith Olbermann.
I think his show is amazing. The thing about Olbermann’s
show is that there isn’t anyone left-of-center on network and cable news.
There isn’t. George Stephanopoulos does a Sunday show. Okay; but it has been
pretty much Right-wing dominated as these networks try to ape Fox News and
what they’ve done for ratings. For Olbermann to be
left-of-center and to do as well as he is, is amazing. He’s sandwiched
between shows aimed at right-wing viewers, and he’s been blowing them out of
the water, so more power to him. I wish the other networks would look at what
Keith is doing and take a chance on another left-wing host. I would love to
do a cable show; but they’ve been very cautious about approaching those on
the Left for whatever reason.
EDGE: You recently finished
a stint on another MSNBC show, The Situation with Tucker Carlson? What was
that like?
Rachel Maddow: I had a one-year contract, which expired, and I actually extended
it a bit; but he’s now at a time slot when I’m asleep; and he also moved to Washington - he was previously in New York.
He wanted an out liberal on the show, and I give him credit for that. He’s
also a very considerate, polite person who was a nice person to work with.
He’s really good to his staff. He’s not a screamer. He’s a personally nice
guy. That was a really good experience for me, and I’m happy to have had it.
EDGE: The Massachusetts
legislature put back a vote on a referendum to ban gay marriage until after
the fall election. What do you think of this, and the entire debate?
Rachel Maddow: The funny thing is that there are 8,000 people married, and the
whole argument against gay marriage - and I could come up with better
arguments - is that the sky was going to fall. Teenagers would stop dating
each other and marriage would end and people would start having sex with
their pets. It was this Armageddon scenario. But what’s happened in Massachusetts
has eliminated that argument. The sky still rises in the East and sets in the
West. People are still getting married and children are being born. There
haven’t been any negative repercussions at all, and it’s hard to sell the
scare scenario to people who have seen it happen. I wasn’t surprised to see
the Legislature decided to let the current law ride through after the
election. It doesn’t mean the anti-Gay Marriage forces are going to relent,
but I think it’s going to be more of a challenge for them to be successful.
EDGE: You are in a long-term
relationship. How do maintain that with your schedule, and do you have much
of a social life?
Rachel Maddow: What’s a social life? My partner Susan Mikula
is an artist, and the fact that she is an artist makes her flexible in her
schedule, which means she isn’t day sleeping like I am. The weekends are
really, really precious to us. We travel between our house in Massachusetts
and a tiny apartment in the city. We are making it work. We would prefer to
have a more normal schedule, but having the TV job on MSNBC and having this
morning show on Air America,
I wouldn’t give it up. We are able to make it work for our relationship. I
feel it is like this golden opportunity to broadcast these shows, and I’m so
grateful for it that she’s really supportive, so it’s all okay. As for a
social life: nada. I haven’t seen a movie that I haven’t had to see for my
show in two years.
EDGE: How are you doing with the
ratings?
Rachel Maddow: The ratings have been a nice surprised [sic]. I’m surprised to
get ratings as good as I’m getting, and they’re going up and up; something
I’m doing is connecting with people, and I’m really grateful. Air America
doesn’t have huge resources to put up billboards and do a lot of promotion,
but even without that, my ratings are super-competitive. The thing that I can
most control is the ’time spent listening,’ which is the amount of time that
people keep listening when they tune into you; and mine is the highest in the
market; so I couldn’t be happier about that.
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