Today is the birthday of American television anchor and political commentator RACHEL MADDOW. Her syndicated talk radio program, The Rachel Maddow Show, aired on Air America Radio. She was also a guest host of Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Race for the White House.

Maddow now hosts a preeminent nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC and she was the first out Gay anchor to be hired to host a prime-time news program in the United States.  Rachel (don’t you feel like you can call her by her first name even if you haven’t actually ever been introduced?) earned a degree in public policy from Stanford University in 1994. At graduation she was awarded the John Gardner Fellowship.

She was also the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and began her postgraduate study in 1995 at Lincoln College, Oxford. In 2001, she completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree (DPhil) in politics from Oxford University. Her doctoral thesis is titled HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons. She was the first openly Gay American to win a Rhodes scholarship.

Maddow wrote Drift, which examines attitudes toward and policies about war. It was hailed by every critic as a concise and well thought out treatise of the subject. Her analysis is on point at every turn. 

In these troubled days she is must-watch television (even if she is annoyingly repetitive and pedantic from time to time…Rachel…hire a good editor!…we love you!) Her most recent book, Prequel, should be required reading for every voting American.