Chipper cable host Rachel Maddow told Jimmy Fallon last night, on the air, that she recently had swine flu. “First my girlfriend got it, and then I got it,” she shrugged. “It was a really stanky flu, and I had to take the week off.” She’s fine now, but while she recuperated she sat around the house and read I, Claudius and “graphic novels about Afghanistan,” because she is a lovable geek. “I had the flu! I don’t know,” she laughed. “I have weird taste.” We’ve been thinking about it, and we must say, the swine-flu gods have a weird sense of humor. Rachel Maddow is basically the only nighttime cable host we can think of who would deal so blithely with contracting H1N1, with the exception of maybe Campbell Brown, Shep Smith, or Anderson Cooper (and we’re not even sure on the latter two — they might be secretly fussy). Imagine if Keith Olbermann, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Chris Matthews, or Greta Van Susteren got swine flu. It would be terror central! Either that or a live broadcast from Whiny Town.
