Rachel hits the Big Time!

She gets a show of her own on September 8 and from Day 1 it will probably be the smartest news show on television. She ...
is Rachel Maddow, and if you haven't seen her yet on MSNBC make sure you tune in and get to know her.

Here are some testimonials:

• Andrew Golis writes: "She, unlike almost every other political pundit on television, is rigorously fact-based, refreshingly unhackish when it comes to defending or attacking the Democratic Party, and rarely goes with easy vilifying of those with whom she disagrees."
• The Kansas City Star: "Rachel Maddow went to Stanford and won a Rhodes Scholarship. She earned a doctorate in political science at Oxford. So far so good.A couple of years ago I wondered in a column if Olbermann was the future of TV news. I’ve since realized that he’s a singular figure — part sports anchor, part “Bob and Ray Show,” part Murrow seance — and not likely to be cloned. The future of TV news, rather, now looks more like Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd, two clever nerds who don’t believe in information overload and are fluent in irony."
• Huffington Post: "Keith Olbermann had Rachel Maddow on "Countdown" Tuesday night to celebrate and discuss the news. In the clip, Rachel said that the show will discuss politics and weird news — like stories on the Iraqi national soccer team and domestic crimes committed by naked men — and that she will remain on Air America."

Bravo to MSNBC for doing the smart thing and hiring a smart, progressive voice to complement Keith Olbermann. But they are taking some heat from concern trolls.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon writes a terrific post hitting back at the critics:

"Maddow is unquestionably one of the smartest and most incisive commentators anywhere on television -- perhaps the smartest. One would think that the presence of smart commentary in the wasteland known as "cable news" would be cause for celebration ..."

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