Rachel and HuffPost

We're very happy to welcome Rachel Sklar to our HuffPost editorial team. I've been a fan of hers from her days at FishbowlNY (to say nothing of her tomato blogging). She's going to be covering the media waterfront for us, as well as developing new HuffPost features. The only bad news for us L.A. HuffPosters is that she will be based in our New York office on the SoHo strip. Everyone there has already enjoyed her helpful Canadian references and her ready supply of kosher wine.

I imagine she'll be drinking a few glasses as research for her new book, which she's doing for HarperCollins: "JEW-ISH: the essential guide to understanding the difference between a shiksa and a latke (and why are there so many ways to spell Chanukah, anyway?)."

When I first met Rachel at Nick Denton's party welcoming HuffPost to the blogosphere and to New York, she greeted me with a welcome in Greek (she protests that she's far from fluent in Greek but does know the value of shouting malaka! at the right moment and has been known to slap a heel or two in the zembekiko). We bonded over that -- and over our mutual obsession with trying to slip Shakespeare references into as many political blog posts as possible.

How can you not want to work with someone who does such a literary-yet-bloggy analysis of your (okay, my) Cheney-as-Lady-Macbeth post? I can't wait to see all these gifts on display as she joins me and my gang of Russert Watchers. Indeed, starting this Sunday, she'll be manning the Russert wheel while I try to meet the looming deadline on my new book on fearless women. Of which she is definitely one.

So, welcome to the team, Rachel. Or as we say in Piraeus: Kalos orises, Rachel!