My Year-End Crush

Let's have one last look back at 2008 before we look forward to the new year, shall we? While it would be totally obvious, entirely deserved and completely precedented for me to pick the fabulous Ms. Fey as my Year-End Crush, I don't want to be the most redundant girl in the world – I just want to be a moderately redundant girl. So instead I'd like to luxuriate a full 365-days worth of literate lust on Rachel Maddow. Rachel is truly an appropriate crush for 2008 given that this was the year she came, saw and kicked the good 'ol boys network of political punditry in its ass. An out lesbian. A Rhodes Scholar. A self-avowed sneaker-wearing, comics-reading, Twitter-scanning geek. There is so much to love about Rachel, but I think what I love most about her is that she talks to us about politics the way we'd like to talk about politics with our friends. Granted, she is way more informed and infinitely more insightful than most of us even dream of being even on our best days. But we all want to be able to approach the absurdities and outrages in our world with the same ever-present good humor and even-handed rationalism that Rachel displays every night. Also, I just love it when she laughs. It's a little bit dorky and a lotta bit endearing, just like her. Happy weekend and happy 2009, all.

p.s. Since you demanded asked so nicely, here is one more reason to love Rachel: She defends us bloggers, and in her PJs no less.