Oprah (65 page)

“Ever mindful of her status as the Most Powerful Woman on the Planet, Winfrey approached the Gore and Bush interviews as if they were a sacred duty,” Joyce Millman wrote on
Salon.com
. “You could tell she was serious, because she interrupted Gore and Bush even more than she usually interrupts guests who have ceased to interest her….
I don’t understand why Bush was so reluctant to debate his opponent; facing Al Gore for 90 minutes has got to be easier than keeping She Who Must Be Obeyed amused for an hour.”

Oprah did not endorse either candidate, but by the end of his hour, George W. Bush had hit a home run straight out of her ballpark. When Chris Rock appeared a few months later he blamed Oprah for handing the White House to the Republicans.

“You made Bush win. He came here and sat in the chair and you gave the man a win. You know you did.”

“I did not,” she said with an unconvincing laugh.

Gloria Steinem sided with the comedian. In her profile of Oprah for
Time,
she wrote, “Only when she leaves her authentic self behind does she lose trust, as when she aided the election of George W. Bush.”

A few weeks after Bush became president, Oprah asked for an interview with Laura Bush for
O
magazine, and while she and the First Lady were talking in the family quarters at the White House, the president poked his head in, saying he wanted to greet the next president of the United States. “Thank you for coming to see Laura,” he said, “and letting her show her stuff.”

Days after 9/11 shattered the country, the White House called Oprah and asked if the First Lady might appear on her show to address teachers and parents on how they could help their children through the trauma. Oprah welcomed Mrs. Bush on September 18, 2001, and they walked onstage hand in hand to try to reassure a nation that had been profoundly shaken by the horrific attacks. Reflecting the mood of the country at the time—a desire and need to come together to try to understand what had happened—Oprah presented shows on “Islam 101,” “Is War the Only Answer?” and “What Really Matters Now?”

She also did a show featuring Afghani women titled “Inside the Taliban,” which prompted another call from the White House, asking her to join Mrs. Bush, Communications Director Karen Hughes, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as part of an official U.S. delegation to visit Afghani girls returning to school after the fall of the Taliban. Oprah declined, saying she was too busy, when in fact she, like many, was too scared to travel in the wake of the terrorist attacks. She canceled a trip to launch
O, The Oprah Magazine,
in South Africa
in April 2002, saying, “I started feeling uncomfortable about traveling. My instinct says things aren’t right in parts of the world. All parts.”

The White House leaked the story to the press on March 29, 2002, that Oprah had said no to the president and, as a consequence, the trip, designed to dampen images of global violence, had to be postponed. A controversy ensued over Oprah’s rejection after her publicist told the
Chicago Tribune,
“Given her responsibility to the show, she isn’t adding anything to her calendar. She was invited, but she respectfully declined.”

The headlines kicked up a media storm:

“Winfrey Won’t Tour for Bush” (
New York Times
)

“Envoy Oprah a No-Go: Talk Queen Declines Bush Invite to Tour Afghanistan Schools” (
New York Post
)

“No Oprah, No Afghan Trip” (
Washington Post
)

“Winfrey Declines Bush Invite to Afghan Trip; US Hoped to Show Its Help for Women” (
Chicago Tribune
)

“Oprah Balks; Talk Show Diva Refuses Afghanistan Invitation” (
Daily News
[Los Angeles])

A columnist from the
Chicago Tribune
wrote: “It’s great to live in a country in which a black woman finally has the power and the self-esteem to say no to the man in charge.”

That triggered a letter to the editor about what looked like a blatant snub:

In a swivet over the negative publicity, Oprah called her friend Star Jones, then appearing on
The View,
to say the White House story was untrue. Jones went on the air moments later to share Oprah’s call:

Yet within six months Oprah appeared to be helping the president in his lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. On October 9, 2002, she presented a show to “help you decide if you think we should attack Iraq.” Although she featured speakers on both sides of the issue, she gave more time and weight to those who supported going to war. At one point a member of the studio audience stood to question the existence of weapons of mass destruction, and Oprah cut her off, saying the weapons were “just a fact,” not something up for debate. “We’re not trying to propaganda—show you propaganda—we’re just showing you what is,” Oprah said.

Immediately after the show, the antiwar website
Educate-yourself.org
published a letter to Oprah, saying:

The Swedish Broadcasting Commission also pounced, saying Oprah’s show, one of Sweden’s most popular daytime programs, betrayed bias toward a U.S. attack on Iraq. “Different views were expressed, but all longer remarks gave voice to the opinion that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States and should be the target of attack,” stated the commission. The Swedish government strongly opposed the invasion, saying it lacked a UN Security Council mandate.

Neither objection fazed Oprah. Needing the approval and good opinion of others, she preferred joining the establishment to jabbing it, and the establishment view then was in support of invading Iraq. Temperamentally, Oprah would have been uncomfortable putting herself in the minority by questioning the president’s policies, especially in the wake of 9/11, when any kind of dissent was looked upon as unpatriotic. Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly had announced, “I will call those who publicly criticize their country in a time of military crisis…bad Americans.” Later Oprah presented a two-part program, “Should the U.S. Attack Iraq?” on February 6 and 7, 2003, and claimed she received hate mail, calling her “the
N
word” and telling her “to go back to Africa” because she was not pro-war enough. That was her last show on the subject. The United States invaded Iraq on March 30, 2003.

Four years later,
Bill Moyers Journal
produced a compelling ninety-minute program on PBS titled “Buying the War,” which showed how the mainstream media had abandoned their role as watchdogs and became lapdogs for a failed policy that cost thousands of American and Iraqi lives. Moyers, who received an Emmy for his documentary, included Oprah in his condemnation of the media.

At the time she seemed to be cheerleading for the Bush administration, Oprah had attracted numerous complaints to the Federal Communications Commission for airing explicit sexual material during hours when children watched television. Particularly at issue was a show titled “Is Your Child Living a Double Life?” in which Oprah and her guests spoke graphically about the sexual slang and sexual acts of teenagers. “If your child said they had their salad tossed…would you know what they meant?” she asked viewers. She then provided the graphic and salacious definitions of “tossed salad,” “outercourse,” “booty call,” and “rainbow parties,” which prompted a barrage of complaints to the FCC. Shock jock Howard Stern tried to air her remarks on his radio show the next day, but his New York station manager bleeped them for obscene and indecent language. “But it’s Oprah,” protested Stern, who had been fined almost $2 million by the FCC for using similar language. Without friends in high places, he felt that he was being held to a double standard.

One of the FCC complainants against Oprah agreed. “The very
day that Howard Stern was fined, Oprah broadcast sexual and excretory material that was even more explicit,” wrote Jeff Jarvis, the former television critic of
TV Guide.
“I’ve complained and so have many others. But you can bet she won’t be fined….” Claiming that Oprah had done her show on teen sex just to get the subject of sex on the air, Jarvis called her a hypocrite. “Oprah: You can’t act as if you don’t bear considerable responsibility for this. You brought sex to afternoon TV. Now I don’t think you should be fined for that and I don’t think you should be taken off the air for that: I just don’t watch you. But you’re doing nothing different from Howard Stern—except getting away with it. So cut your holier-than-thou disapproval of sex on the rest of TV. You are the Queen of Trash.”

The
Santa Barbara News-Press,
which served the area where Oprah’s mansion in Montecito was located, also noted the hypocrisy. “What parents want their kids to come home from school, run to turn on Oprah and be subjected to that stuff?” wrote Scott Steepleton, assistant metro editor. “The time has come for the FCC to stop applying the law in such an arbitrary fashion. If it’s crude, it’s crude—no matter whose show it’s on.” Yet the FCC ruled in 2006 that Oprah’s show on teenage sex was not indecent because the explicit language was not used to shock.

One can only wonder if the FCC was out of order during the February sweeps of 2006 when Oprah did a show titled “Women Who Use Sex to Find Love.” She interviewed a woman, given the fictitious name of Jennifer, who claimed to have had sex with ninety men, keeping an ongoing list and video diary of her one-night stands. Oprah stunned the blogosphere when she said to Jennifer, “So you’ve had men ejaculate in your face who you don’t even know who they are.” The mainstream media did not comment on the Jennifer show, but Robert Paul Reyes, on
AmericanChronicle.com
, accused Oprah of trolling the gutter to rack up ratings.

“Millions of women tune in to you for inspirational and educational programming and you interview a nymphomaniac who’s had unprotected sex with almost 100 guys?”

Unfazed, Oprah may have felt immunized from FCC pressure because of her relationship with the Bush White House, so she continued
presenting tabloidy sex shows intermixed with feel-good and do-good shows. A partial list of 2004–2009 shows:

“Is Your Sex Life Normal?” (2/19/04)

“Is Your Child Living a Double Life?” (3/18/04)

“Secret Sex in the Suburbs” (11/19/04)

“Wife Swapping” (12/27/04)

“Venus, Serena and Jada Pinkett Smith on Dating, Sex and Weight” (3/30/05)

“Releasing Your Inner Sexpot” (5/31/05)

“Women Who Use Sex to Find Love” (2/23/06)

“Female Teachers, Young Boys, Secret Sex at School” (4/27/06)

“Why Do Men Go to Strip Clubs, and Other Burning Questions” (1/1/07)

“237 Reasons to Have Sex” (9/25/07)

“How They Revved Up Their Sex Life” (8/27/08)

“Behind Closed Doors: Sex Therapy” (10/2/08)

“Sex Therapy 2: Fears, Fantasies and Faking It” (11/21/08)

“Best Life Week: Relationships, Intimacy and Sex” (1/9/09)

“Sex: Women Reveal What They Really Want” (4/03/09)

“How to Talk to Your Kids About Sex, with Dr. Laura Berman” (4/09/09)

“14 Years Old: They Say They’re Ready for Sex” (4/16/09)

“How to Get Your Sexy Back Makeovers” (6/15/09)

“Former Child Star Mackenzie Phillips’ Startling Revelations” (9/23/09)

“Mackenzie and Chynna Phillips, Jay Leno and Harry Connick Jr.” (9/25/09)

As much as she may have helped George W. Bush get elected president, Oprah did even more for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 race for governor of California. “Both of those candidates had real difficulty on policy issues and had issues with women voters,” said Mark Sawyer, director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics. “The ‘are-you-a-nice-guy-to-talk-to’ aspect of [going on]
Oprah
” made both Bush and Schwarzenegger more approachable candidates.

When Schwarzenegger appeared on the show, he was being investigated by the
Los Angeles Times
for numerous incidents of sexual harassment over three decades. By the time the newspaper ran its series, there were sixteen women who claimed to have been groped and mauled by him against their will. Most did not come forward voluntarily because they were afraid of reprisals in Hollywood. Some said Schwarzenegger had attacked them in elevators or on movie sets. One said he wrestled her from behind, shoving his hands up her skirt. Another said he grabbed her breasts, threw her up against the wall, and demanded sex. All described his language as lewd and demeaning.

That evening David Letterman joked, “Today the
L.A. Times
accused Schwarzenegger of groping…women. I’m telling you. This guy is presidential material.”

Schwarzenegger admitted to telling coarse and bawdy jokes in front of women, but he denied all charges of sexual harassment. Still, his sudden decision to enter California’s recall election had exposed his personal behavior to public scrutiny, and so his first interview after announcing his candidacy on
The Tonight Show
was on
The Oprah Winfrey Show.