MSNBC Set to Ruin Rachel Maddow

One of my favorite places to get my news from is Air America. The biggest reason is that I don't enjoy reading on computer screens and much prefer to get my information via radio programs that can be loaded onto my Ipod, then researching for accuracy and details later. As opposed to the majority of radio programs that I have sampled on Air America, which largely confuse politics with news, the Rachel Maddow show is contextually one of the best because she starts every day with news from Iraq, covers governmental crimes, interviews constitutional lawyers, Congressmen and Senators, economists, and is ex-military and does a great job of explaining what to make of events in foreign lands. To give you an idea of her character, she definitely has an intellectual crush on Jon Stewart.

However, since she has begun doing pundit interviews consistently for MSNBC, there has been a election-centric shift in her radio programs and I suspect it is because she is asked to talk about political gossip so often on television that she is starting to get sucked in.

Beginning tonight, Rachel will have her own television show to be aired after Keith Olberman at 9pm EST. When I heard that Rachel Maddow got a show, I told a friend that she will either be a force that will elevate television news or television news will ruin Rachel. This response she gave to a question posed by Think Progress doesn't offer much comfort:

What’s the mission of the show going to be?

The mission of the show is…it seems kinda obvious, which is that, in the eastern time zone, Keith Olbermann is on at 8 and then Keith Olbermann is on at 10. It’s repeated. And there’s an hour in between. And Keith has very high ratings. … The idea is, in between two hours of Keith, what can we do to hold on to as many of those viewers as possible and even to attract new ones. And they think I’m the person to do that. So that’s the mission — keep Keith’s numbers.

With the rest of the corporate news stations focused so heavily on election he-said, s/he said, making the entire election into a highly rated Jerry Springer Show with a governmental twist, will Rachel Maddow be able - or willing - to resist?