The Huffington Post noted today that on Thursday night’s broadcast of Jeopardy!, panelists answering a series of questions (or make that “questioning a series of answers”) on “Real Rhodes Scholars” failed to identify MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, even when a picture of her was shown as a hint.

The “answer,” printed on the game board and voiced by longtime Jeopardy! moderator Alex Trebek, was “This cable TV newswoman received a doctorate in politics from Oxford.” A picture of Maddow was flashed to the contestants as a further clue. While they could identify other Rhodes scholars in the category, none of the three contenders could come up with the right “question”: “Who is Rachel Maddow?”

Predictably, Huffington Post readers of various political persuasions (and with varying levels of comfort with English grammar) came up with a variety of reasons for the contestants’ failure to name RM. Some found it an occasion to peg Maddow as a nonentity. Others responded with some digs at “brainwashed” I-only-watch-Fox-News Americans.

As a loyal Maddow viewer myself, I’ll be interested in her own take on tonight’s (Friday’s) The Rachel Maddow Show. I have no doubt that Rachel will deal with the situation with her usual amused self-deprecation.

Sounds like a good “cocktail moment” to me. In this instance, Maddow may decide to “make it a double.”

UPDATE: Rachel Maddow did mention the Jeopardy incident on tonight’s show–in passing. She mentioned that the Drudge Report made fun of her for not having been identified by the game show’s contestants. She said she found her demonstrated lack of recognizability to be “hilarious.”