Fred Martinez's Monitor

Why is Oprah Afraid of Sarah Palin?

http://www.amusedcynic.com/wordpress/?p=122

Sarah Palin–The “Alpha-female grizzly”* who scares the living crap out of Oprah Winfrey…
5th September 2008, 04:15 pm
*H/T to The Anchoress for the phrase…

I’ve never seen the Oprah Winfrey Show….true fact. So, I don’t really understand the hold she has on people, but I guess she recognizes a kindred soul in Barack Obama (and no, “soul” is not a veiled racial reference, so don’t go there, girlfriend). She knows damn well what would happen if Sarah came on the Oprah show and was introduced to all of Oprah’s “girlfriends.”

So, she’s decided that her show is not going to be used to promote political candidates, and any interview with Sarah Palin will have to wait until “after the election.” Fine, it’s her show, but I wonder how she feels about the “Fairness Doctrine” that her Democratic overlords (underlords, actually) are so hot to implement? I would note here that Bill O’Reilly (at the dastardly FOX News) had no such qualms about interviewing Obama on his show, and that Obama (at long last) had enough gonads to go on with him.

Why this Oprah hypocrisy? Because Oprah is scared to death that her secular liberal Messiah could be defeated electorally by the conservative she-devil. In fact, I’m sure that Oprah’s TV instincts are good enough that she’s positive that that will be the outcome, if the electorate gets to meet an un-slimed Sarah Palin.

Rich Lowry was on top of Oprah’s game a long time ago, with a NY Post piece titled “Oprah the Apostle: Why the Obama Cult is Creepy“.

December 11, 2007 — Barack Obama found the perfect booster in Oprah Winfrey. Not only can she fill a football stadium with 30,000 adoring people and put a hammerlock on a news cycle, she specializes in the warm-and-fuzzy uplift that is the very foundation of Obama’s candidacy.This was the pontiff of daytime TV bestowing secular sainthood on the golden child of latter-day liberalism. “For there is born to you this day a savior.” The Oprah-Obama match is made not quite in heaven, but in a haze of inspirational piety with heavy religious overtones.

People had “Oprah for VP” buttons at this past weekend’s rallies. The Queen of All Media surely would never accept such a demotion. But Obama-Winfrey would make a natural ticket: They’re both African-Americans with major racial crossover appeal; they’re arguably the nation’s biggest celebrities in their respective fields of media and politics - and they offer affirming messages of hope and self-help.

In her stump speeches on Obama’s behalf, Oprah zeroed in on the heart of the matter: Obama’s post-political messianism. In South Carolina, she declared that it isn’t enough for candidates to tell the truth, “We need politicians who know how to be the truth.” One wonders if it were merely a transcription error in the news reports that “the truth” wasn’t rendered in divinized capital letters.

[...]

Is he really? It’s hard enough for a presidential candidate to have a plan to save Social Security and stabilize Iraq, let alone embody the truth and touch our souls. Obama plays into this messianism because it’s what gives his candidacy its unique appeal. Otherwise, he has a collection of pedestrian Democratic positions. It’s the promise to redeem our politics, “to create a kingdom right here on earth” - as he put it at a church event in South Carolina a few weeks ago - that accentuates his status as a different kind of candidate.{…]

Obama is attempting to counter the Sarah “Hail Mary-Pass” problem with a Flying-V-formation of tough women who are supposed to protect his delicate messianic body from the ferocious Alaskan “Alpha-female grizzly.”

I don’t think it will work. I think the alpha-female grizzly is going to smack him out of the water like a Coho salmon.

posted by Fred Martinez @ 7:28 PM