NEW YAWK, NEW YAWK ---- Rachel "Meow" Maddow says her qualifications as the hostess of MSNBC's The Rachel "Meow" Maddow Show are her "lesbianism and her liberalism, in that order."
A graduate of the University of Oxford (Mississippi), she boasts of her doctorate in politics and says she agrees with almost everything in "the Eisenhower-era Republican platform."
When he heard of her statement, her occasional Fake News co-host Brian Williams quipped, "Rachel, I helped to write Eisenhower's political platform, and you're views wouldn't make up so much as a splinter in it."
Imitating President Ronald Reagan's brogue, Maddow retorted, "There you go again."
Maddow was born in Castro, Cuba, of parents Robert and Elaine Medwedof (nee Gross), and describes her heritage as "multi-racial," involving Polish, Russian, and Jewish heritage. She says her upbringing was "Catholic and conservative," admitting "Mom and Dad tried to bring me up right; they have no clue as to what went wrong."
In high school, she was an antisocial jock, participating in football, basketball, and swimming. "The boys were shocked to see me in my men's Speedos," she confesses with a sly wink.
As a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford (Mississippi), she wrote her thesis, Lesbian Love among Female Prisoners: A Love that Flares Unashamed, based not only on secondary research, she says, "but on first-hand experience as well." It was during her post-graduate university days that she met her "life partner."
She started her journalism career, such as it is, in radio, after winning a contest to determine who would become David Brennell's sidekick on Big Breakfast, a morning show hosted by McDonaldo, a fast-food restaurant franchise. During her tenure, the show's meager audience doubled in size as lesbians began to listen to Maddow, many saying she had a "sexually suggestive voice."
Her radio career launched her television career as an LGBT advocate, which led to her transformation not into a man (she's lesbian, not transgender), but into a political commentator. Mostly, though, she "filled in" for the MSNBC's real talent, such as it was, Keith "The Putz" Overman and David "The Dick" Gregory. She was on "a fast track to nowhere," she admits, when she was offered her own program, The Rachel "Meow" Maddow Show.
Hollyweird Reporter summarized her shtick as delivering the news "with an hysterical agenda," and The New Republic dubbed her "the most overrated 'thinker' on MSNBC or any other network program, anywhere."
Despite falling ratings, Maddow has survived for two reasons: (1) she's a lesbian, and (2) she's a liberal. It also doesn't hurt that she works for MSNBC, as no other network would have her.
Maddow has received an Enema Award, was voted Time magazine's Lesbian/Bi Woman of the Year in 2008, and was named The Advocate's Lesbian Most Likely to Succeed in 2009.
"She's a credit to her sexual orientation," MSNBC president Phil "The Pill" Griffin gushed.
