That's Good Punditry

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Rachel Maddow kicking ass
(via Glenzilla at Salon, via Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic)

It's not often that I'm truly impressed by a pundit on cable news, but it looks like I should start watching Rachel Maddow more. Even people with whom I generally agree and are often eloquent (read: Keith Olbermann) bloviate a bit too much for my taste, but there's something about the way Maddow eviscerates this guy without once raising her voice or yelling over her guest that's truly amazing to watch. Glenzilla says it best:

(1) Rachel had obviously done a substantial amount of work prior to the interview, having even read the guest's books and being able to refer to various parts of them quickly [...] .

(2) Rachel, despite being unfailingly civil and polite, was obviously indifferent to whether the guest liked her. She bombarded him with questions that made him extremely uncomfortable and which conclusively proved that he was simply lying. Media stars who host political interview programs would never subject powerful people to treatment like that for fear of losing access and/or their standing in the Beltway world.

(3) Rather than treat the guest and his claims as entitled to respect and deference, Rachel explicitly pointed out when he was lying, and even more important, demanded that he accept responsibility for his conduct [...] .

Greenwald, of course, has much, much more to say--his posts are, as often as not, tome-like. But, in many ways, Maddow is Greenwald with some of the wrinkles ironed out. While it's quite true that Maddow is "indifferent to whether the guest liked her," Greenwald tends to use language a bit more loaded than Maddow.

Can you imagine how much better those obnoxious "watch pundits yell at each other" shows would be if the pundits in question actually talked about the issues, you know, intelligibly (and, more importantly, intelligently).

As Greenwald says:

Just imagine how much better things could be if our political leaders were routinely subjected to the kind of surgically probing, lie-exposing interrogation which Rachel imposed on her homosexual-converter guest. But the reasons they almost never are speak volumes about our media stars and their true function.