The Olbermann-to-Maddow Hand-Off

Every night at 8:59 and some decent amount of seconds, Countdown segues into The Rachel Maddow Show. Sometimes, they just fade to black with Olbermann and start up anew with Maddow. But maybe 50-60% of the time they let K.O. and R.M. onscreen at the same time, and they usually engage in some light pitter-patter, a series of "lol, Bush" winks and some childish giggling, before Maddow's show actually begins. It's hard to decipher the subtext of these moments, but I'll do my best.



OLBERMANN: ...Good night, and good luck. We now turn over to The Rachel Maddow Show. Good evening, Rachel.

Goddamn, I love being me. I'm going right outside to Rockefeller Center after this, and I'm going to put on a pink hat and goosestep around the block four times, because fuck it, what's stopping me?

MADDOW: [Smiling] Good evening Keith...

I've been sitting here in this chair for 23 minutes watching you excoriate the entire evening line-up of Fox News, and now I have to interview Sherrod Brown? What the FUCK are my producers doing?

MADDOW: ...that was very funny.

Warren, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Prop 8, Iraq, Warren, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Prop 8, Iraq, Vagina, Vagina, Vagina.

OLBERMANN: Yeah I thought so too. I especially liked the part where I spoke extemporaneously for 9 minutes and 16 seconds on why Obama needs to close Guantanamo Bay.

Listen. You're gay, I'm bi... I didn't major in math, but there has to be something that can be done here.

MADDOW: [Laughing] ...Oh Keith, that's great. Thanks again. And thank you for sticking with us...

I'd need about a fifth of Jim Beam in me for this to work.

MADDOW: ...We have a lot to talk about tonight.

I get to discuss Iraq with Jim Webb, who thinks I should be either a) blowing him or b) making him waffles, and then I have the pleasure of debating politics with Pat Buchanan, whose ideal world would be one in which I were stoned to death.