Rachel Maddow made her "View" debut Thursday morning and covered a range of topics, from coming out to her conservative parents to her thoughts on Rush Limbaugh to why she thinks Barack Obama is the right President for the time.
Maddow — who, at 5'11", was described by Joy Behar as "a tall lesbian" — spoke, as she often does, about not being a typical "TV news babe." She discussed the first time she met her partner, Susan Mikula — like a scene from "Gay Desperate Housewives" — and how she came out: by plastering an announcement all over the dorm bathrooms at Stanford, without telling her parents (who received an anonymous letter alerting them to the news and "did not react well").
Maddow also described her look as a tomboy growing up.
"I had long blonde hair, but even as a little girl with long blonde hair, I looked like one of the Hanson boys," she said.
Maddow discussed her hate mail — of which there's a steady stream, some targeting her sexuality — but she also received an unlikely compliment from conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
"You do an exceptional job," Elisabeth said. "I think it's important to recognize people who do a great job on both sides of issues."
Regarding man-of-the-moment Rush Limbaugh, Maddow said, "I think that Rush is very successful and very smart, and the idea that the President would actually debate him is hilarious. The idea that I would ask somebody from the Republican party...of course that would be great for me, but it would be stupid for any politician."
When asked about the economy and the administration, Maddow had high praise for the President.
"I think that we are in a pickle as a country," she said. "I think that the economic crisis is so much bigger than any of us can grasp. And I think that we need somebody with big ideas who's willing to take big action....I think the budget's a good budget, I think the stimulus plan is a good stimulus plan, I think we need to think big."
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