Rachel Maddow

I referred to it this past weekend, but I wanted to be sure I clarified a portion of Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate Rand Paul's episode given Sarah Palin's recent defense of Paul.

Palin was trying to make the case, like she did after her horrible interview with CBS's Katie Couric, that the media is out to get candidates, looking for "gotcha" moments. Thus, according to Palin, Rachel Maddow conspired to get Rand Paul to flip-flop all over the place in his appearance on her show last week, which set this debacle into action.

Yet, Frank Rich notes this is a fallacy. Again and again, long after its passing, Paul is on record as saying he is not behind the Civil Rights Act:

With Rand Paul, we also get further evidence of race’s role in a movement whose growth precisely parallels the ascent of America’s first African-American president. The usual Tea Party apologists are saying that it was merely a gaffe — and a liberal media trap — when Paul on Wednesday refused to tell Rachel Maddow of MSNBC that he could fully support the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But Paul has expressed similar sentiments repeatedly, at least as far back as 2002.

The more the Democrats can use Paul to represent what the GOP is increasingly representing in American politics -- the idea that no government is better than any government -- the better shot they have at avoiding a major beating at the polls come November, especially if Democrats are successful in mobilizing pro-government Millennials. This is why people like Fox analyst and ex-Bush adviser Karl Rove phoned Paul at the end of last week begging him to cancel his scheduled appearance on Meet the Press.

The McCain campaign loves to focus on Barack Obama's "exotic" person, his "celebrity," or whatever you'd like to call it.

Rachel Maddow, in this segment of tonight's Road to the White House, nails Jay Carney of Time for suggesting that Obama's "unknown" to Americans. Take a look:

Let's reexamine what Rachel says:

There's a story to tell about John McCain, though, that makes him just as unknowable. The guy with nine houses. The guy with $520 shoes. The guy that dumped his first wife and married the beer heiress...

He's been on the scene for a longer time, but how many people know he has nine homes? How many people know he has $520 shoes. We don't focus on John McCain because people don't report it with the same intensity and fervor that they report every personal detail about Barack Obama and what he eats for breakfast.

Having watched Rachel this whole year, I don't think she wants to get into this back and forth discussion on a topic of so little substance.

But I think what she was getting at is valuable. The media and its punditocracy play dumb when pondering the question they so often ask: "Why is Barack Obama not winning in such a Democratic year?" How do they do this? And why are they doing this? They offer the standard "he's an unknown politician," "he doesn't have a core," or, if you're Pat Buchanan, "he's exotic." Perhaps, as Rachel suggests, the traditional media is complicit in this very uneasiness they're reporting with Obama.

Thoughts?