Authors: Edward Klein
The Amateur (17 page)
Months later, when Michelle announced she was going to devote herself to fighting childhood obesity, Oprah offered to pitch in. She sent word to Michelle that she would love to have her on her TV show, where Michelle could tell millions of viewers about healthy nutrition for their children and families. Oprah also wanted to broadcast a show from the White House on the subject of exercise and weight control.
Once again, Oprah waited in vain for a response from the White House. When an answer finally arrived, it was curt to the point of rudeness: “That wouldn’t fit into the First Lady’s plans.” According to sources for this book, Oprah told Gayle King that she felt like getting Michelle on the phone and really letting her have it. Oprah raged: “Michelle hates fat people and doesn’t want me waddling around the White House.”
Eventually, Gayle convinced Oprah to let her draft a diplomatic note expressing Oprah’s disappointment. But an Oprah aide, who was close to several members of the White House staff, learned that Michelle treated Gayle’s letter with scorn. “Oprah only wants to cash in, using the White House as a backdrop for her show to perk up her ratings,” Michelle was quoted as telling her staff. “Oprah, with her yo-yo dieting and huge girth, is a terrible role model. Kids will look at Oprah, who’s rich and famous and huge, and figure it’s okay to be fat.”
Oprah went through the roof when she heard about Michelle’s remarks. “If Michelle thinks I need more fame and money,” said Oprah, “she’s nuts.”
I asked a White House insider to explain Michelle’s animus toward Oprah. “Michelle is furious that her husband makes late-night calls to Oprah, seeking ideas on how to improve his sinking popularity,” the source told me. “Michelle thinks he should turn to her, not Oprah, for that kind of advice. What’s more, Michelle suspects that at one point Oprah secretly encouraged Hillary to consider a run against Barack in the 2012 Democratic primaries. Barack just laughs at the idea and so does Oprah. But Michelle still believes Oprah has been getting too close to Hillary, whom Michelle calls ‘a snake.’”
Nonetheless, the president pushed Michelle, against her will, to make a sort of peace with Oprah in order to get Oprah’s endorsement in 2012. Left with little choice, Michelle reluctantly agreed to tape an interview for one of the last
Oprah
TV shows, in May 2011. She sat there through much of the show with her arms folded in a defensive posture across her chest.
Oprah
TV shows, in May 2011. She sat there through much of the show with her arms folded in a defensive posture across her chest.
Will Oprah support Barack Obama in his second run for the White House? And if so, will she expend the same energy and enthusiasm that she exhibited the first time around?
Those questions could be asked not only of Oprah, but of Obama’s other key supporters and fundraisers from the 2008 election. For many of them, disillusionment has replaced the old fire in their belly. Three and a half years of aloofness, non-communication, and dithering amateurism by the president left his old shock troops in a state of shock.
Obama’s campaign staff has scrambled to repair the damage and convince these important Democrats that the president will be more considerate of their views in the future. Obama Campaign Headquarters in Chicago has dialed up a charm offensive, and Democrats who hadn’t heard from the president for months or even years were showered with sudden invitations to the White House.
Despite all this, rumors persisted that Oprah would sit out the 2012 election. When I asked Gayle King about that, she told me, “Ed, we have every intention of supporting the president for reelection.” But the question still remained whether Oprah would run the risk of further alienating her audience by going beyond a verbal endorsement and actively campaigning for Obama.
Since leaving her syndicated talk show and launching OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, Oprah has been struggling with anemic ratings. She and her backers have lost tens of millions of dollars and have been searching for new investors. By closely associating herself with Barack Obama, she might complicate her efforts to save OWN. In any case, after suffering repeated snubs from Michelle, it seems likely that this time around, Oprah Winfrey would play it safe and put her business interests before politics.
CHAPTER 14
SNUBBING CAROLINE
I mean, Caroline Kennedy—come on!
She’s part of history.
I
t was toward the end of June 2009, and the weather in Hyannis Port had turned grim and chilling. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who was suffering from the final stages of incurable brain cancer, had just returned from an excursion on his beloved sailboat, the
Maya
. His wife, Victoria Reggie, was waiting for him in a golf cart at the wind-swept dock. Two burly aides lifted Ted out of the boat and placed him gently beside his wife. The couple then drove to a large tent, where almost one hundred members of the Kennedy clan had gathered near the home of Ethel Kennedy for a birthday party for two of her grandchildren.
t was toward the end of June 2009, and the weather in Hyannis Port had turned grim and chilling. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who was suffering from the final stages of incurable brain cancer, had just returned from an excursion on his beloved sailboat, the
Maya
. His wife, Victoria Reggie, was waiting for him in a golf cart at the wind-swept dock. Two burly aides lifted Ted out of the boat and placed him gently beside his wife. The couple then drove to a large tent, where almost one hundred members of the Kennedy clan had gathered near the home of Ethel Kennedy for a birthday party for two of her grandchildren.
“It was a rare gathering of the extended family,” the wife of one of Ethel’s sons said in an interview for this book. “That kind of thing only happens now at funerals. The family is very divided and spread out. The Hyannis Port compound thing is fading fast.
“It was a weird occasion,” she continued. “In a way, it was to say farewell to Ted. But in Ted’s eyes, it was to heal a rift in the family, which was divided over its support for the newly elected president, Barack Obama. Ted, of course, had enthusiastically endorsed Obama during the primary campaign and general election, calling Obama a man with extraordinary gifts of leadership and character. And Caroline [Kennedy] said that Obama offered the same sense of hope and inspiration as her father. But there were naysayers present at Hyannis Port, notably Bobby [Robert Kennedy Jr.], who had been all for Hillary and was still a bitter critic of Obama.
“Ted wanted to convince the family to speak with one voice so that they would have more political power in the future. It was the kind of advice his dad, old Joe Kennedy, would have given. It was a huge thing for Ted, something he was willing to spend his last breath on.”
Frail though he was, Ted was eager to take the fight directly to Bobby who, along with his sisters, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Kerry Kennedy, led the family faction that had supported Hillary. There had always been tensions at Kennedy family gatherings—fist fights and overturned tables were not unheard of—and this event was no exception. Bobby told his uncle in no uncertain terms that he deeply resented the outrageous way the Obama people had tried to hang the charge of racism on Bill Clinton. For Bobby, like his father, Robert F. Kennedy, everything was personal; Bobby had two children who suffered from asthma, and he didn’t think Obama took environmental issues like air quality seriously enough. Bobby also argued that Obama had no experience and was going to make a complete botch of things.
As he listened to Ted try to defend Obama, Bobby got hot under the collar and started pointing his finger in his uncle’s face. He kept saying over and over, “If you don’t listen to me, you’re going to regret it.” When Ted tried to explain his position, Bobby interrupted, saying, “Obama talks about clean coal. There’s no such thing as clean coal!” His brothers, Max and Joe, had to intervene and urge him to drop the argument.
During the luncheon, Ted proposed a toast to Obama—not once, but twice. He spoke feelingly, but from a seated position, because he no longer had the strength to stand. Caroline joined her uncle’s toast, even though she had developed some early misgivings about Obama’s team of advisers. During a recent meeting of Obama’s aides at Ted’s home in the Kalorama section of Washington, D.C., Caroline had offered several ideas about education reform to Arne Duncan, Obama’s secretary of education. Duncan listened politely but seemed unimpressed by Caroline’s point of view. She wasn’t used to people ignoring her suggestions, and she was still smarting from the experience.
Nonetheless, Caroline offered a few words of praise for Obama. She spoke about how hard she had worked for his election. She said that Obama was serious about ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bobby sat there, fuming. He had always found Caroline too smug for his taste. Her words angered him, and he squeezed his fluted glass so hard that it shattered in his hand, shocking everyone and causing a sudden silence.
Two months later, Ted Kennedy was dead, and for the first time in more than seventy-five years, the clan was without a chieftain. In Ted’s place, power was split among three cousins: Joseph P. Kennedy II, a former congressman who ran Citizens Energy Corp., a non-profit oil company; Robert Kennedy Jr., the environmental activist and syndicated talk-show host; and Caroline Kennedy, the most famous and popular living Kennedy of all.
For the most part, Joe Kennedy remained mum about the Obama administration, leaving it to his brother Bobby to make fiery speeches attacking the president for his environmental policies. That left Caroline, who had showered Obama with all her prestige and celebrity. She was the only Kennedy who had reason to expect something in return from Obama, and she didn’t waste any time asking for a plum appointment.
Since Caroline’s abortive run for the United States Senate from New York, she had lost all interest in elective office. But she wanted to secure a position as an adviser on education to the new administration. With that in mind, she sent the White House a long memo on education funding reform, which was based on her first-hand experience with the New York City Board of Education. She ended the memo by saying that she hoped to meet with the president to discuss her ideas.
She never got a response. Not even an acknowledgement that he had received the memo.
Then, in the summer of 2011, Caroline asked Maurice Tempelsman, her mother’s longtime companion and a major player in the Democratic Party, to arrange a meeting with the president and his political advisers on Tempelsman’s 70-foot yacht the
Relemar
, which was docked on Martha’s Vineyard, where the president was vacationing. It was Caroline’s hope that such a meeting would further her late Uncle Teddy’s dream of forming a close bond between the Kennedys and the Obamas.
Relemar
, which was docked on Martha’s Vineyard, where the president was vacationing. It was Caroline’s hope that such a meeting would further her late Uncle Teddy’s dream of forming a close bond between the Kennedys and the Obamas.
Once again, the White House spurned Caroline’s overture. The president didn’t even make an effort to see Caroline, whose home on Martha’s Vineyard, Red Gate Farm, was not far from the house the president was renting. A presidential snub had turned into an insult.
The White House meted out similar treatment to Ethel Kennedy, the matriarch of the family. During the presidential primaries and general election, Ethel was so gung-ho for Obama that she stopped talking to her son Bobby, because he was an Obama critic. After Obama won the election, Ethel invited the new president to stop by her house in the Kennedy Compound. Her request was met with stony silence. Ethel was so angry that she went on a rampage inside her house, cursing the president and turning over furniture.
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