Give Rachel Maddow Her Own Show Already

One of the most refreshing developments over the last few years has been the increased willingness of the "liberal media" to actually give real liberals some air time once in while.

Unapologetically conservative pundits and journalists have been making regular appearances in mainstream news programs for as long as I can remember. The roster of such pundits (mainly writers for conservative rags like the National Review and Weekly Standard or conservative columnists at major newspapers) is deep, and every one of them has countless television appearances to their name.

But for years, the standard practice was to "balance" these conservative voices by pairing them with one or more mainstream journalists, people who--whatever their personal political leanings--did not want to be seen as taking sides in political disputes and certainly did consider it their job to give the "liberal" perspective on the issue of the day. Occasionally, you'd see someone like E.J. Dionne or a writer for the New Republic, who felt free to express a political opinion, but their views were often not very liberal and invariably were infected by Beltway conventional wisdom. Indeed, it seemed like the more willing these "liberal" pundits were to disagree with prevailing liberal views, the more likely they were to get booked.

That dynamic has started to change a little lately with the success of Keith Olberman's show. I think the executives at NBC News finally realized that there was a large swath of the political spectrum that was not being represented on television and that if you put actual liberals on the air, left-leaning viewers (which comprise at least half the country) might finally have some reason to tune in.

Which brings me to the subject of Rachel Maddow, who is a ubiquitous presence on MSNBC these days. She is hands down the smartest and most insightful voice in cable news, so much so that it's almost jarring. I'm so used to hearing the talking heads on these shows spout mindless conventional wisdom or conservative misinformation that I'm genuinely shocked when someone says something intelligent.

Apparently MSNBC is planning on giving Maddow her own show at some point, which is excellent news, but I wonder what's taking them so long. Despite Olberman's ratings success (his is easily the highest rated show on the network), Countdown is still the only consistently left-leaning show on television. After watching her fill in for Olberman last month, I have no doubt that if Maddow was given her own show, her ratings would quickly surpass the ratings for Dan Abram's and David Gregory's shows and probably Hardball as well. Indeed, I much prefer Maddow to Olberman, and I doubt I'm alone in that regard. There's no reason she shouldn't already have her own show.

UPDATE: I see both Matt Yglesias and Atrios had similar thoughts today.