Defending Rachel Maddow

Pema Levy, of the American Prospect, was rather surprised by the New Republic's decision to include MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on their list of DC's most overrated thinkers. In her defense:

Is Maddow polemical? Often. Does she have opinions? Obviously. Is she anything like Fox News, where making up facts and promoting a partisan agenda is all in a day's work? Anything but. She carefully uses her pulpit to push important issues that the rest of us often leave behind.

I have a strange thing for Maddow's show. Although I often disagree with her politics, she goes about reporting in an admirable way, and with a mindset more journalists ought to adopt. Although, yes, she happens to be opinionated, Levy's correct in defending her against the accusation that she's anything like the fact-contorting talkingheads on Fox News.

She's not deserving of any such comparison, unless favourable – and I think you can appreciate how difficult that would be to make. Yeah, very.