Rita and Rachel: On the news, and making it

Last night was a first for Tucker Carlson: his guests were two women, the reliably-awesome Rachel Maddow and MSNBC’s new thoroughbred Rita Cosby of the upcoming “Rita Cosby: Live & Direct” (or, as I like to call it “Rita Cosby: Between O’Reilly and The Daily Show, Good Luck Finding An Audience”). Has there been any other talk show besides “The View” where the women outnumber the men? Certainly not a news show. I think Tucker & Co. may have just made history.

A few notes on Rita: she looked good. Sleek blonde ‘do and she seems to have slimmed down a tad. It was the first time I’d actually ever seen her in action really – I only saw snippets of the Jackson family interviews, and she was just listening. I have to say, I’m not a fan. This has nothing to do with Dan Abrams, I promise (and look! I was just so nice about her hair!) but there’s just no comparison between the level of play during this show and Tuesday’s “Situation” with Abrams sitting in (true, they were discussing Dan’s bread and butter, legal stuff, but still). The upshot is, I just don’t see what all the fuss is about.

I will say this: Rick Kaplan is smart smart smart for rotating his talent through Tucker’s studio. It’s a great way to cross-pollinate between shows on the network, and beyond that it’s been a great way to mix it up so curious viewers will tune in to see who’s on tap tonight. Let’s see if it does anything for the ratings…

Update: Apparently it’s not the first time; on Monday Tucker had on Rachel and Monica Crowley. My bad. As far as I can tell, though, that still counts as makin’ history.

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