Is Oprah just another celebrity?

I got into a pointless debate yesterday via Twitter — not pointless because the subject was unimportant, but because I don’t think either side had any intention from the get-go of really hearing and considering the counterargument. I have my opinion, you have yours, we agree to disagree.

I’m fine with people disagreeing and disputing my opinion, but I do start getting riled up when it’s suggested my opinion is baseless, so I’d like to ask you if you have any inkling of the same feeling, or at least see where I’m coming from.

I can’t quite put my finger on it or even articulate it all that well (which is probably why I haven’t found any takers yet), but there’s something about Oprah’s campaigning for Barack Obama that gives me the tiniest bit of heebie-jeebies. Maybe even just one heebie-jeebie. And it needn’t be all that heebie of a jeebie, either. Just a regular jeebie.

At the end of said pointless debate, my jeebie was dismissed under the suspicion that it’s just a result of my support of another candidate, one whom Obama is currently beating in the polls. I’m sure there’s a little of that ulterior motive in my suspicion, but am I really “so far from reality” when I assert my opinion that Oprah is no ordinary celebrity? Come on, even EbonyJet.com says that such an assertion is “stating the obvious.” The woman can practically turn any book of her choosing into a best-seller with her little book club, even though she kicked off the Iowa rally by mocking the suggestion of any parallel between that and her political influence. Is it a total leap to say that Oprah getting up on stage and telling the throngs how absolutely fabulous Obama is and what a history-making vote we ought to make carries a little more sway than, say, Bruce Springsteen or Martin Sheen would? (Dave Matthews, I dunno…his fans can be a little obsessive.)

And again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, I’m just saying I have this jeebie here, and the EbonyJet article indicates I’m not alone. Does it heebie your jeebies, or am I just all sour grapes ’cause she don’t like Joe Biden?

The language is a little mixed here, anyway. In Iowa Saturday, she started off with the disclaimer (after aforementioned pundit-mockery), “I am not here to tell you what to think, I’m here to ask you to think, seriously.” She follows this immediately with an opinion stated as fact: “I want you to think seriously about a man who knows who we are, and he knows who we can be.” Does he really? That’s pretty bold. She kept asserting that he’s the candidate of change, and change is what we need, without following up with why the hell he’s that man. Gee, another young Senator with a law degree? That’s different! She talked about all the troubles in life that “somebody ought to do something about,” then said, therefore, “we need Barack Obama.” Because none of the other candidates are committed to the welfare of all Americans, I guess.

But here’s the pinnacle of the audacity of her hope:

Experience in the hallways of government isn’t as important as experience on the pathways of life. So I challenge you, I challenge you, I challenge you, to see through those people who try and convince you that experience with politics as usual is more valuable than wisdom won from years of serving people outside the walls of Washington, D.C.

“See through those people,” i.e., the people pitching you candidates with more political experience than Obama are charlatans. Yes, in this time of international peril, let’s put the new kid at the helm, because someone like Biden hasn’t had any experience on the pathways of life (save for overcoming a childhood stutter, quitting a well-paying job to become a public defender, rebuilding his family after the death of his wife and daughter, and surviving cranial aneurysms).

Yeah, I’m just sour grapes.

But let’s not forget what else Oprah has help shill to the public under the rubric of “change.” In reading elsewhere about this story, I came across an excellent video clip from the Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, in the episode “Rush to War.” It’s a minute well worth watching.

Such folly from a woman who now slathers praise on Barack Obama for his brilliant “judgment,” which is a word that stands in for his not having had to walk the walk in the Senate when others had to vote on the AUMF. Though he lambasts his opponents now for that vote, he of course admitted to the NY Times in 2004 that he didn’t know how he would have voted had he been in their shoes.

Just how such triangulation is the “change” we “need,” I’m not sure. But I’m pretty far from reality at this point. So what do you think, how are your jeebies?



Read more filed under Culture, Media, Politics