Rachel Maddow in VogueDespite the fact that you don’t get to see the cute sneakers or glasses when Rachel Maddow appears on her self-titled MSNBC show, she’s still as dreamy as she is politically engaging. Nevertheless, I do wish they’d let her have a little less rouge — and maybe a sweater vest a la Ellen DeGeneres rather than her awkward womens pantsuit.
Maddow’s appearance in Vogue fashion magazine, alongside Katie Couric and Campbell Brown in a piece called “Shaping the News,” finds a decent happy medium.
Maddow has reclaimed the fun of news and has doubled the audience for MSNBC’s 9 p.m. time slot, especially among 25- to 50-year-olds. Vogue gets the general Maddow adoration — bordering on obsession — that gays, lesbians and all lefties seem to feel:
Her style of political discourse is a break from the shouting, point-counterpoint approach that dominates cable news, instead emphasizing her relentlessly cheerful, conscientiously concise opinions. “I’m trying to get people to agree with me,” she says. “I am trying to say, ‘Here’s how I see the world.’ Not everybody’s going to agree with me. But I think that I make sense, and I would like you to think that I make sense, too, because I think that we can make sense of this world together, you and me, if” — and here she shifts into a fake TV announcer’s voice — “you’ll just follow along!”
My only recommendation to Maddow and the show would be to help the ginger-haired “Just enough” segment co-host Kent Jones be a little less goofy and a bit more witty. Sarcasm doesn’t always have to come with a smile, even if Rachel’s fan base may swoon at each giggle.
