The folks at NewsBusters think they have stumbled on the ultimate put down of one of the left’s favorite spokespersons. Last night on Jeopardy the contestants blanked out on the following question:
“This cable TV newswoman received a doctorate in politics from Oxford”
Accompanying the question was a picture of Rachel Maddow, but that still didn’t help the contestants come up with a correct response. The NewsBusters then opined that…
“This can’t possibly be great news to MSNBC execs given Maddow’s lead role in the network’s recent debate coverage.”
I’m inclined to agree. If I were an MSNBC exec I would be concerned that a panel of intelligent, well-informed players couldn’t identify the network’s star attraction. However, another star of the political universe met with the same fate last year when the Jeopardy answer was…
“Her latest book is titled ‘America by Heart: Reflections on Faith, Family and Flag.'”
Not one of the contestants knew that the correct question was “Who is Sarah Palin.” So if it is an indication of the irrelevance of Maddow that she was unknown to the Jeopardy panel, how much worse is that Palin, who had run for Vice-President and become a regular contributor on Fox News, was also unknown in the same venue? Palin has had far more media exposure throughout the media world than Maddow, who is mostly limited to appearances on MSNBC.
Not surprisingly, the right-wing media noise machine quickly pounced on this story and regurgitated it throughout the blogosphere. Of course that included Fox News whose Fox Nation posted the item with a snarky headline reading, “Rachel Who?” But don’t bother looking for their article about Sarah Palin’s turn on Jeopardy. Fox is not about to reveal the truth about their overpaid, irrelevant leading lady.