Rachel Maddow Praises Fox News, Frigid Winter Forecast for Hell

Every now and then, though not often, MSNBC has its moments.

Like when one of its left-wing pundits has something good to say about Fox News. Yes, that Fox News.

On her cable show Thursday night, Maddow and Democratic strategist Joe Trippi were discussing a poll conducted by Opinion Dynamics and reported by Fox.

The poll found that 53 percent of respondents oppose current health reform legislation while 33 percent support it. Respondents were also asked whether Obama apologizes too much for past US policies, if his schedule makes Obama look more like a candidate on the campaign than president, and whether federal spending should be reduced now or reductions deferred to future generations.

Maddow argued that the survey was, in effect, a push poll due to the sequence of its questions; Trippi disagreed --

MADDOW:  But if polling companies are being paid by opinion media to ask questions that are, when did you stop beating your wife senator questions, do they have a responsibility to not do that? If polling is being used as a form of campaigning, do they have a responsibility to say, no, we're not going to ask that? 

TRIPPI: Yeah, I think that, absolutely, absolutely. But I would say that when I looked at some of those questions I thought they were among some of the more interesting questions I've seen asked in a while. I'm not sure, in other words, was it a bunch of folks saying, hey, let's ask these interesting questions that led in ...

MADDOW (chuckling): Uhm hmm ...

TRIPPI:  ... No, no, and I mean that. I mean, like, I really think it is an interesting question, is President Obama campaigning too much or is he president? Do you see him as a campaigner or president? I think that's a very interesting question. Should it have been right in front of the health care question? I don't know the answer, I'm not a pollster. But my point is, that's more like the AP (referring to AP poll that found rise in Obama's approval rating) should they, how did they get their sample wrong? I'm not prepared to, I know we're all, Fox this (motions arm dismissively), you know, all that. I just don't, I have a very high opinion of Opinion Dynamics and I don't think the Fox News organization necessarily went there. I don't think that's what happened here. And again, I think the message to progressives should be, who cares? Let's dig in, the White House, let's get the votes, let's organize for a public option. Let's do the things that we think are right and who gives, who cares whether there was something wrong in the AP poll or the way Fox asked its questions.

MADDOW:  And that's why I wanted to have you on about it because to me it seems like this is, this sort of comes with a foghorn on it in terms of Republicans being cautionary about it. I'm not saying, you're saying we're all supposed be Fox's (crosstalk), wait, let me, you sort of cast aspersions on me ...

TRIPPI:  No I did not!

MADDOW: Yeah you did! By saying we're all supposed to say that Fox News is X. I actually don't have that sort of opinion about Fox. I think they're a fairly diverse organization, but in this case I think that the fact that they have become the de facto news organization of the Republican Party, that the Republican Party takes their information disproportionately from Fox ...

TRIPPI: Well ...

MADDOW: ... wait ...

TRIPPI: ... yeah ...

 MADDOW: ... is a problem if what Fox is doing is telling a conservative audience what they want to hear.

As if Maddow isn't telling her liberal audience what they want to hear on a nightly basis. Except in those rare instances when she'll dig deep to summon praise for the dreaded Fox.

Come to think of it, wasn't Maddow pitching her services to Fox before she began working at MSNBC?