My Weekend Crush

It's been an auspicious week for lesbians on the butcher side of the spectrum. First Ellen DeGeneres gets her easy, breezy on as the new face of CoverGirl. And then Rachel Maddow does the seemingly impossible. She beat her MSNBC cohort, series lead-in and perennial ratings king Keith Olbermann in only her second week on the air. On Tuesday, Maddow's show scored 1.8 million total viewers to Olbermann's 1.6 million. She also got 25,000 more of the much-coveted (by advertisers, anyway) 25-54 demographic. How much do you want to bet 24,999 of those 25-54 year olds were lesbians harboring serious crushes?

After only a fortnight of holding court, the former Rhodes Scholar is already a force to be reckoned with in the political landscape. While she is unabashedly liberal, she isn't blindly partisan. Talking points are the anathema of her show. Her winning mix of unstoppable smarts, persuasive passion, hilarious incredulity and adorable dorkiness make her any thinking gal's dream date. But what really makes her so good is that she cares. She cares deeply about politics. She cares about who is telling the truth. She cares about who is lying. She cares about what works. She cares about what doesn't work. She cares because she knows that political decisions matter in people's personal lives. Some line-item in a 200-page bill could actually means something in your everyday life. It could mean you finally get health care to cover your child. It could mean your company gets a tax break to ship your job overseas. It could mean that your government can deny you even the most basic protections simply because the person you love happens to be of the same sex.

Lots of people hate politicians, and with good reason. But politics doesn't have to be about strife and division. It should be about working together to find ways to make sure our government truly work for the people it represents. Rachel knows that. And that's why she cares. Happy weekend, all.

p.s. Damn, how sexy is that smarty?