IMO, Big Ed Schultz Has Really Improved On MSNBC; Better Than KO
I was pissed when KO left MSNBC, and I didn't think the the cool demeanor of Lawrence O'Donnell was the best replacement for that time slot.
Moving Ed into the 8pm slot was a gamble, but I think that gamble has paid off. Ed is on top of and out in front of issues like worker and womens rights, going the extra mile to take his show to the issue and by having a much more diverse choice in guests than was KO's want. KO's show is pretty much an echo chamber, while Ed does have opposition guests on with whom he does battle (he's also getting better about letting guests talk. I think MSNBC could help him there by cutting down on the number of segments per show and lengthening the segments proportionally). Ed certainly delivers his spiel much better than KO, who continues to talk too fast to avoid tripping over his words, often when he's delivering what should be the money line.
Ed can still stumble about looking for words, and he can get lost reading the teleprompter on occasion, but overall, his show is killer. Last night's was one of the best ever. Now, if MSNBC would drop those "where are the jobs" promos for Ed. They seem counterproductive to the fact that job growth is quite robust these days.
And I think Lawrence is in a better time slot for the kind of show he delivers. I'm think that titling it "The Last Word" indicates that MSNBC planned all along to move him to the last slot on their nightly line up of punditry.
Any other Ed fans out there?
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Rachel is the only one I watch pretty much without fail, so I'm only speaking of her show--but when she had the GOP guy from Maine on last night, and in other friendly interviews with Tim Pawlenty and Michael Steele and even Rick Santorum, I've thought that it was great that Republicans were willing to come on her show because they would always be treated respectfully (she doesn't let them get away with false statements, but she keeps things civil). To me, interviewing people of opposing views validates MSNBC as a source of real journalism while Fox remains a joke. I couldn't guess whether this is a deliberate tactic on her part, so that she can get interviews like the "kill the gays" guy from Uganda on and get him to flash his own ass instead of just telling us about him second-hand, or whether it's because Rachel is a nice person who's genuinely interested in looking at something from all sides--I think it's both, and I think it's a good thing. I won't deny that I also enjoyed MSNBC before all the Republican contributors started showing up, though. 
