A 2011 Hollywood Reporter profile of Maddow said she was able to deliver news "with agenda, but not hysteria".[78] A Newsweek profile said, "At her best, Maddow debates ideological opponents with civility and persistence ... but for all her eloquence, she can get so wound up ripping Republicans that she sounds like another smug cable partisan." The Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik accused Maddow of acting like "a lockstep party member".[79] The editors of The New Republic similarly criticized her – naming her among the "most over-rated thinkers" of 2011, they called her program "a textbook example of the intellectual limitations of a perfectly settled perspective".[80]
On awarding her the Interfaith Alliance's Faith and Freedom Award named for Walter Cronkite, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy remarked that "Rachel's passionate coverage of the intersection of religion and politics exhibits a strong personal intellect coupled with constitutional sensitivity to the proper boundaries between religion and government."[81]
Similarly, a 2008 Time profile described Maddow a "whip-smart, button-cute leftie". It said she radiates an essential decency and suggested her career rise might signify that "nice is the new nasty".[82]
Distinguishing herself from others on the left, Maddow has said she is a "national security liberal" and, in a different interview, that she is not "a partisan".[83][84] The New York Times called her a "defense policy wonk".[45][83]
