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Rachel Maddow

American television news host and political commentator

Rachel Anne Maddow (born April 1, 1973) s an American television news program host and liberal political commentator.

It's truly a blessing to have total freaking idiots as your enemy.

Quotes

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2000s

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  • When Pat is saying something outrageous, you know when you yell at the TV? I get to yell at him in person. I get to yell at the TV and it hears me.
    • "A liberal pundit soars to a prominent perch," Boston Globe (September 8, 2008)
  • When Conservatives crusade against government while they are trying to be appointed to head the government, I think that's weird!
  • The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you've just told them.
    • Late Night with Conan O'Brien, NBC (November 21, 2008)
  • I'm so rarely the arbiter of what all women want. I'm usually quite the outlier on that chart.
    • Inauguration Night, MSNBC (January 20, 2009)
  • I really believe that in America, if you are clinging to some indefensible, unconstitutional bad idea of a policy, ultimately — one day — you are going to look up from the front gate of your prison and there on the horizon will be the ACLU.
    • At the ACLU Wisconsin's 2009 Bill of Rights Celebration (February 23, 2009)
  • Coming up: The part of my interview with the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, where she smacks me down like a ball-peen hammer meeting a thumb. Ow. Ow. Ow.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (25 February 2009)
  • You want to know what just happened there? She smacked me down - smacked me down: "But Speaker Pelosi, the Republicans are all over the TV machine opposing the economic stimulus." "Settle down, kid. It‘s not working." Duh. Maybe she‘s right. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal sort of put the punctuation mark on Speaker Pelosi‘s point about Republicans on TV with his response to the not state-of-the-union last night.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (25 February 2009)
  • Ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. That was the whole idea, right? That‘s why we went. I am reluctant to let that fact disappear down the memory hole, because if — as the war ends, or at least starts to end — if, at this time, the history of the war is written as us going there to topple the regime of a bad man when that frankly isn‘t why were told that we were going there — Aren‘t we still at risk of making this horrific mistake again? And, aren‘t we letting the people who foisted the WMD idea on us, not many years ago, aren‘t we sort of letting them get away with it?
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (27 February 2009)
    • NB: From Wikipedia "Memory hole" article: "The memory hole, as in the phrase "Going down the memory hole," refers to a small chute leading to a large incinerator used for censorship in George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four:

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.(pp. 34-35)

    • In the novel, the memory hole is a slot into which government officials deposit politically inconvenient documents and records to be destroyed."
  • In other words, Bush broke what I have always called the “Amish bus driver” rule. If your religion requires you not to drive, cool beans, free country — but then you can‘t get hired to be a bus driver if your religion won‘t let you drive the bus.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (27 February 2009)
  • I‘ve given up trying to get invited to a cocktail party but I‘m going to the egg roll. I swear.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (27 February 2009)
  • Spending freeze is what made the Depression 'Great.'
    • The View, ABC (5 March 2009)
  • Who's Burson-Marsteller? When evil needs public relations, evil has Burson-Marsteller on speed-dial.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC (5 March 2009)
  • So best of luck to the Sea Shadow and its disguise-me ship, which I have to say are the most adorable multimillion dollar bits of scrap heap-bound Cold War ephemera that we have seen in a long time.
  • When Blackwater killed those 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, they called Burson-Marsteller. When there was a nuclear meltdown at Three-Mile Island, Babcock and Wilcox, who built that plant, called Burson-Marsteller. The Bhopal chemical disaster that killed thousands of people in India, Union Carbide called Burson-Marsteller. Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu — Burson-Marsteller. The government of Saudi Arabia, three days after 9/11 — Burson-Marsteller.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (5 March 2009)
  • Spending Freeze? (referring to remarks by John Boehner), the brand named policy of economic fundamental misunderstanding endorsed by more conservatives than any other proven policy failure on the market today
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (6 March 2009)
  • Michelle Obama: "more popular than warmth on a cold day" MSNBC (10 March 2009)
    • Rachel Maddow recently referred to one reason for the proposed revision of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the US Military as: "the arc of the universe bends toward justice." The origin of this quote can be traced to Martin Luther King, Jr., who in turn was quoting Unitarian Theodore Parker who said, "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one… And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

See: http://www.uucnwt.org/sermons/TheMoralArcOfTheUniverse%201-15-06.html

  • "...teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny, tiny little..."
    • The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC (Various times/dates)
  • RACHEL MADDOW: That‘s why we don‘t have to worry about the antichrist until after the rapture?

TIM LAHAYE (Co-author of the Left Behind series): That‘s right. MADDOW: Takes a load off my mind.

    • The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC (March 2, 2009)
  • "I had long blonde hair, but even as a little girl with long blonde hair, I looked like one of the Hanson boys."
    • The View, ABC (March 5, 2009)
  • "I spent the weekend curled up with the Marine Corps and Army counterinsurgency field manual—because that‘s how I roll on the weekends."
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (16 March 2009)
  • I can't be frustrated at you because you’re stupid but I can be mad at you because you’re evil.
  • Now, according to the new-fangled U.S. government, it is OK to have the gay.*
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (18 March 2009)
  • Maddow on Sarah Palin accepting Fed money after all: "You can see cake from her house, and you can eat it from there too."
  • Dare I say it? Congressional Republicans had a collective war-metaphor-gasm trying to make the president‘s budget seem scary.
  • "You see, on the landscape...there's the yelling. Into the chessboard. Upon which is a tent! For the enemy camp! Master plan!"
    • The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC (26 March 2009)
    • In response to Michael Steele's defense of his various gaffes as "strategic", during which he mixed several metaphors.
  • War is destructive. The idea that you can do something constructive with war is becoming this facile, dangerous, intellectually lax political interpretation of military counter-insurgency theory. I want to hear [President Barack Obama] say that doesn't work. That war is never constructive.
  • The bomb exploded the junk in Vladimir's trunk. Y'know, they always said that Communists would get it in the end.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC (1 April 2009)
    • Commenting on a bomb that blew a hole in an 80-year-old St. Petersburg statue of Vladimir Lenin.
  • Sarah Palin is now the guy who hangs out in the high school parking lot showing off his car, five years after he graduated.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 3, 2009)
  • I felt tense. He did not.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 3, 2009)
    • Reporting on whether her interview with Colin Powell became tense.
  • Separate is not equal. Duh.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 3, 2009)
  • Thank you Satan.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 6, 2009)
  • Ron Paul supporters didn't use the term 'teabagging.' Maybe they knew how to use Urban Dictionary.com.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 13, 2009)
  • Congratulations, you have been tea-bagged!
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 14, 2009)
  • We're no longer officially a superpower. Please turn in your badges.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 20, 2009)
  • Republican 'poutrage' over the 'handshake seen round the world.'
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 20, 2009)
  • The downside of playing dumb is that you sound dumb.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (April 27, 2009)
  • Beware the power of the pajama-clad, Cheeto-eating, twitter, blogging hordes. We are legion!
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (May 4, 2009)
  • why does accountability keep hitting a glass ceiling?
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (May 5, 2009)
  • Now I'm going to have nightmares about myself.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (May 26, 2009)
    • After mocking Republican scare tactics.
  • Boy am I unqualified for that!
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (June 4, 2009)
    • Rachel Maddow on talking fashion.
  • I assume people with bad arguments will just lose them.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (June 5, 2009)
  • It's truly a blessing to have total freaking idiots as your enemy.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (5 June 2009)
    • Commenting on Al-Qaedas comments on Barack Obama.
  • I wonder what [Obama's] record would be like so far if he weren't such a fierce advocate for gay rights?
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (June 8, 2009)
  • More drama than a junior prom, a shotgun wedding, and a paternity test all rolled into one!
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (June 8, 2009)
  • Expressing an opinion about the news does not negate one‘s status as a news reporter or as a correspondent or as a news anchor. The expression of opinion about the news is not the difference between FOX and the rest of the news media. The difference between FOX and news is that FOX is now actively organizing and promoting a protest movement against the U.S. government.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (October 23, 2009)
  • Constitution Doesn't Have A Preamble. Not. Nope. Stop it.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (November 5, 2009)

2010s

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  • The Republicans... are having a hard time getting their members to act as a unit instead of like a bunch of six-year-olds playing anarchist soccer; three teams, two goals, you decide.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (February 16, 2011)
  • As you can tell, my Halloween costume this year is once again middle-aged lesbian pundit in cheap jacket. Boo.
    • The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC (October 31, 2012)
  • And it is like -50 degrees in that Dakotas right now. What would happen if Russia killed the power in Fargo today? Alright. What would happen if all the natural gas lines that service Sioux Falls just poofed on the coldest in recent memory and it wasn't in our power whether or not to turn them back on? What would you do if you lost heat indefinitely as the act of a foreign power on the same that the temperature matched the temperature in Antarctica? What would you and your family do?

2020's

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  • The Biden administration today announced that as of today, we have crossed an important threshold. As of today, a majority of U.S. seniors have been vaccinated. We have hit 50 percent of all Americans aged 65 and up have been vaccinated. Just a remarkable threshold.
  • I say this tonight, not for the gee whiz factor of me having Liz Cheney here tonight, me having somebody here tonight who you would never expect. I say this not for just the man-bites-dog weirdness of this. I say it because I think, in civic terms, in sort of American citizenship terms, I think it's really important how much we disagree. It's important how far apart we are in every policy issue imaginable. It is important that Liz Cheney is infinity and I am negative infinity on the ideological number line. It's important because that tells you how serious and big something has to be to put us, to put me and Liz Cheney, together on the same side of something in American life.

About Maddow

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  • In 2009, when the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by a military coup, the coverage was characteristically scant. Maddow framed the coup as more of a curiosity than a crisis. While some of her coverage focused on the Republicans who planned trips to Honduras in order to support the coup government, other of her segments poked fun at Zelaya’s attempts to re-enter the country. The fact that the Honduran military opened fire on supporters of Zelaya awaiting his return at the airport, killing a teenage boy, was not part of Maddow’s look at the lighter side of overthrowing an elected government.
  • If you were counting on the polls telling you something about the midterm elections that are just two weeks away, the answer is that they're telling you that the candidate you want to win needs your help.

See also

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Rachel Maddow at Wikiquote's sister projects:
  Article at Wikipedia
  Media from Commons
  News stories from Wikinews
  Database entry #Q555 on Wikidata
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