Rachel Maddow Profile…

The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz profiles Rachel Maddow…

Losing a dominant figure like Olbermann once “would have been a fatal blow to MSNBC,” says NBC News Chief Steve Capus, “but that’s no longer the case.” He calls Maddow a trailblazer who “doesn’t spend her day trying to get everyone to believe what she does.” Olbermann, who branded foes the “Worst Persons in the World,” constantly clashed with management, which threatened to fire him when he warned he might publicly challenge his suspension for donating money to Democrats.

“She’s our biggest show,” says MSNBC President Phil Griffin, who describes Maddow as “so friggin’ smart… Very few people can be so honest with a remark, a giggle, a serious look. There’s no performance art. That performance is Rachel.”

Adding to the pressure is the recent takeover of NBC by Comcast, a famously buttoned-down corporation that could demand changes (though Capus dismissed as “crazy” speculation that Griffin might be squeezed out). Olbermann, now with Al Gore’s Current TV, might start sniping at his old network once a non-disparagement agreement expires. But his shadow remains: Olbermann so thoroughly defined MSNBC as the voice of liberal outrage that Maddow, a self-described policy geek, must help forge a new identity. Maddow says she misses Olbermann but dismisses “suspicions” that the channel is toning things down, saying the ugly breakup “really wasn’t about the rest of us.”