Rachel Maddow

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“Gun Appreciation Is Absolutely Not Inconsistent With A Belief In Rational Gun-Safety Reform”

March 10, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Videos | Permalink

If it weren’t for Robert Reich, Rachel Maddow would be the most adorable communist in America. The MSNBC host just did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit. A few exchanges follow.

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 Question:

If you could go back in time and cover any news story in history as it unfolded, which would you pick?

Rachel Maddow:

Maybe the presidential election of 1800? A tie! Decided in Congress! Aaron Burr! All that weird campaigning they had never done before! I find electoral politics mostly enervating, but that one sounds like it would have been a blast.

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Question: 

Is there anyone at another cable news channel that you really admire as a broadcaster?

Rachel Maddow:

I really like the way Shep Smith (at Fox News Channel) balances anchorman gravitas… with a willingness to put the artifice aside and acknowledge what it really going on. Some of us can pull off seeming like human beings on TV, some of us can pull off V.O.G. authority, but Shep is really very good at both. Better than anyone else, I think. Also, I’ve met him and he’s a nice person!

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Question:

Our family hung the Rolling Stone photo of you, shooting a Henry Big Boy rifle, on the front of our refrigerator. (We love you and we love repeater rifles.) Do you think the gun legislation and conversion currently brewing in the US would be more efficient if more liberals, who occasionally like to get their cowgirl on, came out of the closet? I really don’t see why the topic ends up being so right wing vs left wing. I feel like there should be much more overlap between the camps.

Rachel Maddow:

Two things: (1) I agree! I think this issue is way more polarized in politics than it is in real life. Gun appreciation, even gun enthusiasm (which I confess to in a small way!) is absolutely not inconsistent with a belief in rational gun-safety reform. It’s weird that we think of the political battle as gun-lovers versus gun-haters — do you know a single gun-lover (who doesn’t work in the political side of the gun movement) who thinks it makes sense for someone adjudicated mentally ill to be barred from buying a gun from a guy at a store, but allowed to buy a guy under a tent or at a convention center? Also, (2) would you please do me the favor of drawing a tiny little moustache on that picture on your fridge?

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Question:

What was it like meeting Howard Stern? That was a great interview; I bought your book afterward.

Rachel Maddow:

Thanks! I love Howard Stern. I was intimidated to meet him just in a fangirl kind of way. But also because I knew he would ask me questions about sex that would make me blush like a cardinal. Once I realized that I could just tell him “no, i’m not answering that!” — then it was just pure fun. That was one of the best interviews I have ever been part of.

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When Howard met Rachel:

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Decoder: Rand Paul’s Recent Comments On “Rachel Maddow” And Other Venues

May 23, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Rand Paul: Keeps a ham radio in the basement. (Image by Gage Skidmore.)

Rand Paul: I don’t want to live in a nanny state where people are telling me where I can go. 

Decoder: Especially that British lady on the GPS thing. She pisses me off.

Rand Paul: I don’t like the idea of telling private business owners–I abhor racism, I think it’s a bad business decision to ever exclude anyone from your establishment–but I do believe in private ownership.

Decoder: Seriously, only the douchebag son of Ron Paul, who may be a poltergeist, could revive a 45-year-old debate about racial discrimination at lunch counters. That issue was sort of already decided, and it made the country stronger in every way.

Rand Paul: Even though I was a year old at the time, I like to believe I would have marched with Martin Luther King. 

Decoder: That would have been the slowest fucking march ever. Fucking baby steps all over Selma. 

Rand Paul: These attacks prove one thing for certain: The liberal establishment is desperate to keep leaders like me out of office, and we are sure to hear more wild, dishonest smears during this campaign. 

Decoder: Although everything they’re saying about me is accurate, taken directly from quotes I made about the Civil Rights Act. 

Martin Luther King Jr: Who was that crazy-looking white baby marching with us? (Image by Dick DeMarsico.)

Rand Paul: I think that we should try to do everything we can to allow for people with disabilities and handicaps. And I think when you get to solutions like that, the more local the better, and the more common sense the decisions are, rather than having a federal government make those decisions.

Decoder: The federal government had to make those decisions since local decision makers were often guided by prejudice instead of common sense. 

Rand Paul: What I don’t like from the President’s administration is this sort of, I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of British Petroleum. I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. 

Decoder: Nothing could be more American than a President standing up to the abuse of people and resources by big business. Just ask Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. And why exactly am I more worried about BP’s hurt feelings than the disgraceful pollution of the ocean? We can live without an irresponsible oil company, but we can’t live without the ocean.

Rand Paul: It’s difficult to have an intellectual debate in a political sense because what happens is it gets dumbed down to three words.
 
Decoder: The three words: Tea Party jackass.
 
More Decoders:
 

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