Susan Mikula better watch out--it seems like Rachel Maddow has found a new love in former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele.
No, we're not being serious, and we know that Maddow and Steele have a mutual fondness for each other. But Monday's chat between host and guest took things to a new level of giggly BFF-dom. We haven't seen Maddow this chummy with a fellow MSNBC employee since she first took Richard Engel into her heart.
The two were speaking about (what else?) the 2012 presidential race. Maddow started by talking about some discrepancies between Rick Perry's defense of his recent book "Fed Up" and his staff's exhortations that the book was not meant to be representative of his views. Maddow focused on one passage in which Perry hints that Social Security is unconstitutional.
"If you say it's unconstitutional...you are proposing getting rid of it!" Maddow said.
"I think he referred to the question of his constitutionality," he said, before breaking into a huge grin, as if he knew Maddow wasn't going to buy that. She didn't, shaking her head and saying, "no, no," but also smiling broadly.
The two also talked about the broader presidential field (Steele said that he thinks the field is "set") and the possibility that former New York Gov. George Pataki might get in the race. As the chat ended, Maddow said, "this was not a very pro-Republican discussion, I have to say, but you parried very well."
"My parry to your thrust," Steele replied. "I was a fencer, don't forget!" Then Maddow and Steele mimed fencing each other. It's love!
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