For a long time I resisted Obama because of Oprah.
If Obama won, Oprah's early and passionate endorsement would deserve a big piece of the credit. An Obama presidency would make her bigger than... well, there would be no limits on her bigness.
What would it be like, I wondered, to live in a nation where it would be easier to desecrate the flag than to object to Oprah? Indeed, it wasn't my distaste for Oprah that I found so bothersome, but that it was so necessary to keep the fact that she makes my skin crawl secret—because any hint of Oprah nausea so clearly suggests anti-social tendencies (and, of course, because she maintains her own special investigators and police force who deal harshly with disrespect).
(AP Photo)
But here we are: It's
Oprah who won it for Obama. It is not just her endorsement that propelled Obama, but her model. Before Obama transcended race, Oprah did. She simply knew better than anybody; her certainty, however saccharine, prevailed.
Everybody came to believe that everybody else believed that Oprah was more perfect. And that finally was the point about Obama, too. He was protected by everybody's belief that everybody else had an unnatural regard for him.
Now this may not be bad at all. Obama's patient righteousness has clearly changed the tone of American politics. And while soon enough, I believe, many Americans will come to find the Obama countenance incredibly irritating, we will have to keep that to ourselves.
As our nation becomes blander and more cautious, our politics become better behaved. And there is no chance now, ever, of a catty remark about Oprah.
