Over the past several years, MSNBC has run a series of “Lean Forward” ads promoting its various liberal hosts’ television shows as well as the network's numerous liberal causes. While many of them have been downright ridiculous such as Al Sharpton’s infamous blueberry pie commercial, the latest one featuring primetime host Rachel Maddow takes a completely different approach.
The “Lean Forward” ad begins by proclaiming “Meet Rachel. She’s a news anchor with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate. But we’re about to find out what happens when she gets serious.”
The commercial then features clips of the “news anchor” Maddow getting “serious” over a variety of issues:
RACHEL MADDOW: This is a story of legitimate wrongdoing on a big scale.
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MADDOW: Nope, that’s made up. Not true.
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MADDOW: If we’re not going to ask these questions now then when exactly are we going to ask them?
In the past, Maddow narrated her own “Lean Forward” where she pushed for greater gun control and urged her audience to “make change.” More recently, the MSNBC host did her best to defend President Obama when she argued that “he had nothing to do with Bill Ayers." On October 29, the MSNBC host eagerly smeared Joni Ernst as a trigger-happy extremist.
Given the MSNBC host’s long track record of pushing her agenda it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously considering Rachel Maddow anything more than a liberal commentator with a cable news show.
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC
Lean Forward Ad
December 4, 2014
ANNOUNCER: Meet Rachel. She’s a news anchor with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate. But we’re about to find out what happens when she gets serious:
RACHEL MADDOW: This is a story of legitimate wrongdoing on a big scale.
MADDOW: Nope, that’s made up. Not true.
MADDOW: If we’re not going to ask these questions now then when exactly are we going to ask them?
ANNOUNCER: From MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show, weeknight’s at 9.
