New York magazine expanded on the legend of MSNBC hotshot Rachel Maddow, revealing her further as a sharp scholar ("I still send students to [her] thesis as a model," says a Stanford professor), unabashed bleeding heart (spending nights "worrying about nuclear proliferation and the Fourth Amendment ") and refreshingly down-to-earth television personality ("There is nothing funnier than a fart"). It also broke the news that the Rachel Maddow Show host now, at long last, owns a television! But then the profile reminded us Maddow got her slot at the expense of a guy in a long-running feud with her advocate Keith Olbermann:

Olbermann had no such kinship with Dan Abrams, the lawyer and former MSNBC executive who hosted Verdict, the program that followed Countdown. In fact, Olbermann’s dislike of Abrams was so intense that he refused to provide Abrams with a “throw,” that brief chat as the audience is passed, it is hoped, from one block of programming to another. Sometimes there would be up to five seconds of dead air between their shows....

Abrams, who is now MSNBC’s chief legal correspondent, says that he considers Maddow’s hiring to be the right decision for the network. But sources say he was privately steaming. “Dan Abrams is not the most sensitive guy,” one MSNBC source says. “But he was like, ‘What the fuck?’ ”

Maddow tells New York she is purposely "naïve about these things," which is just as well: Her ratings doubled Abrams' in a matter of days, which makes her promotion look more like a smart move than vengeance. Besides, Olbermann has sniped at Abrams before, and one could argue that Abrams has done the same, so it's hard to see why Abrams would have been so surprised at the idea of Olbermann shanking him.

Maddow has a smart strategy for avoiding such feuds: Avoid reading blogs.

She’s been getting more and more attention lately, and is now worrying about what she thinks will be the “inevitable” backlash.
“I’m trying not to read the blogs or the press about myself anymore,” she says. “I don’t think it’s healthy for me. It’s like training a dog. I needed it in the beginning, but now I need to sit—sorry,” she glances at the dog. “I need to S-I-T or S-T-A-Y without getting a Milkbone. You can’t live on Milkbones.”