Katie Couric has done an ample job of resuscitating her reputation. Once the piñata of television news — everyone got a turn beating her, and she had to hang there and take it — she's quickly rebranded herself as RESPECTED JOURNALIST and, before that, got a reprieve from media critics bashing her when Keith Olbermann took some of the heat away. But as Couric exits the stage, temporarily, it's no longer Olbermann who's filling the void of short-lived attention spans by media critics. It is, actually, another woman. Her name is Rachel Maddow, and the industry freakin' loves her.

After last week's flurry of positive press, we saw more complimentary profiles arrive in Maddow's mailbox. There was the Times semi-conscious TV watcher Alessandra Stanley, who, while noting Maddow doesn't "add a fresh or contrarian perspective to a cable news channel that increasingly positions itself as the Anti-Fox," she agrees Maddow's "program adds a good-humored female face to a cable news channel whose prime time is dominated by unruly, often squabbling schoolboys; Ms. Maddow’s deep, modulated voice is reassuringly calm after so much shrill emotionalism and catfights among the channel’s aging, white male divas."

Over at The American Prospect, Maddow's entire life story gets the treatment, chronicling her already-told meteoric rise from Massachusetts nobody to a 35-year-old convention-busting show host. Insists the Prospect: "Of all the hosts Air America sent to cable news, Maddow was the one with staying power." That's about as rave a review and showing of support you can get.

Then again, Maddow might find herself inviting early criticism. This week, MSNBC selected Maddow to anchor — not just sit in the pundit's chair — its political coverage, something that Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann have been raked over the coals for. MSNBC chief Phil Griffin withdrew from that strategy when the media press, and NBC News veterans, started stoning him for allowing biased talking heads to man hard news coverage. But now he's … reversed on that thinking? Probably not a wise move for Maddow.