Rachel Maddow just doesn’t give a flying f**k about “being pretty,” thank you very much. But she still has to put up with a lot of annoying busybodying. You know: “Rachel, if you just put more makeup on, why, you’d look so lovely!”

The guys at AskMen.com unveiled their list of the “49 Most Influential Men of 2008” and the results, voted on by their readers, may surprise you. Check out the full list and then, over the next two weeks, check out our picks for the “10 Most Influential Women of 2008”—The Frisky picked a female counterpart for each of the men in AskMen’s Top Ten. We hope you agree with our choices!

MSNBC has always been my news network of choice (sorry CNN, Fox News, and C-SPAN!)—I loved Tim Russert and was always an avid “Meet The Press” watcher, plus I generally just enjoyed the rapport between the network’s anchors, especially during election years. But after Russert’s passing my loyalty was kind of up for grabs again. Rachel Maddow has kept me a MSNBC loyalist—a frequent panelist on shows like “Hardball” and Keith Olbermann’s show, she recently scored her own show on the network at 9pm and has had HUGE ratings since practically the first episode. In fact, the number of viewers for that hour of television on the network has DOUBLED. Why?

1. Maddow consistently holds her own with loud mouths like Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as a regular panelist on MSNBC. She’s so impressive that she scored a hosting gig for her own news show, The Rachel Maddow Show, starting tonight at 9pm on MSNBC.

2. Despite reports, she refused to be “prettied up” for her new show. And thank goodness – like we need another fembot anchor with too much eyeliner and teased hair.