By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Longtime readers know I own the URL/Domain Name, OprahSucks.com, and that I’m a frequent critic of HRHSBotU [Her Royal Highness, Supreme Being of the Universe] Oprah.
It’s not just her absurd pandering to Islam (to the point where the word was not mentioned in a show about the Beslan massacre) and her anti-Semitism (a show featured a woman who said Jews sacrifice their children and didn’t mention the woman was very mentally ill). Or that she hates straight men with a passion and advises parents to get their ten-year-old daughters vibrators. It’s her absurd advice and quackery on health and other issues. The woman is a nut, but, unfortunately, a nut who has the respect of the majority of America’s more emotional, dumber sex and many gay males (who are basically part of the dumber sex).

In Its Dying Days, Nooseweek Finally Takes on Oprah

(Nooseweek from Schlussel Wacky Packages Collection)
On one show, for example, Oprah had on bizarre new age minister Marianne Williamson (whose show she runs on her XM station), during which Williamson told everyone to just tell AIDS to go away, imploring them that if they shout loud enough at AIDS, it will disappear. On another show, Williamson (a secular Jew turned Christian) told Oprah and the audience that menopausal women need to have an “inner Bat Mitzvah” to “love themselves” into old age. Um, a Bat Mitzvah is for 12-year-old Jewish girls, symbolizing their entry into adulthood and acceptance of the complete Jewish religion and its obligations, not an instance for new age health quackery by nutjobs on a daytime talk show.
But, until now, none of the mainstream media would take Oprah on and expose this kind of baloney. In fact, on the contrary, the mainstream media not only refused to expose her, they pandered to her with repeated gushing cover stories.
Now, however, Newsweek–the mainstream media magazine that is no longer relevant and is dying a slow death–has chosen, finally (after itself doing a gushing cover on Oprah), to take Oprah on. The cover photo and headlines say it all.
Now, Newsweek is learning that you can’t criticize HRHSBotU Oprah without being called, “racist!!!!” But the article isn’t racist at all. It’s spot on and doesn’t mention her race, which is frankly a factor in why she gets away with it all. Suburban White women–the majority of her audience–feel like they have a special, magical Black woman friend whose man-hating advice assuages their empty lives and, more importantly, the guilt they’ve been told to feel over their alleged “racism.”
Here’s a little taste, of the Newsweek piece, though I recommend you read the whole thing. It’s still a tad soft on Oprah and not nearly tough enough. But since it’s far more critical than the usual pan-Oprah drivel to which we’re treated, it’ll do. As you can see, it echoes much of what I’ve said repeatdly on this site about Oprah–i.e., that she’s the same as Jerry Springer, only she pretends it’s more highbrow and so does her lame, gullible audience. At least Jerry’s honest about what he does.

Oprah routinely grabs viewers with the sort of tales of the strange and absurd that might be found a few clicks over on Maury Povich or Jerry Springer: women who leave their husbands for other women (another recent Oprah episode); a 900-pound mom (ditto). But there is a difference. Oprah makes her audience feel virtuous for gaping at the misfortunes of others. What would be sniffed at as seamy on Maury is somehow praised as anthropology on Oprah. This is Oprah’s special brilliance. She is a gifted entertainer, but she makes it seem as though that is beside the point. Oprah is not here to amuse you, she is here to help you. To help you understand your feelings; drop those unwanted pounds; look and feel younger; get your thyroid under control; to smooth your thighs, nip and tuck your wrinkles, awaken your senses and achieve spiritual tranquillity so that you can at last be free to “Live Your Best Life.” . . .
Her empire is about to get bigger. Oprah has made a deal to launch her own cable television channel that will reach 70 million homes. It will be called, of course, the Oprah Winfrey Network and will include Oprah-approved programming on health and living well. In announcing the deal, Oprah said, “I will now have the opportunity to do this 24 hours a day on a platform that goes on forever.”
Oprah says things like this without irony. But really, how could it not go to her head, even a little? Her most ardent fans regard her as an oracle.

Not go to her head? PUH-LEEZE. The woman is the biggest egomaniac on the planet.

[T]he truth is, some of what Oprah promotes isn’t good, and a lot of the advice her guests dispense on the show is just bad. The Suzanne Somers episode [DS: spouting the wackiest of advice, which is detailed in the article; Somers also appears on Sean Hannity’s show, FYI] wasn’t an oddball occurrence. This kind of thing happens again and again on Oprah. Some of the many experts who cross her stage offer interesting and useful information (props to you, Dr. Oz). Others gush nonsense. Oprah, who holds up her guests as prophets, can’t seem to tell the difference. She has the power to summon the most learned authorities on any subject; who would refuse her? Instead, all too often Oprah winds up putting herself and her trusting audience in the hands of celebrity authors and pop-science artists pitching wonder cures and miracle treatments that are questionable or flat-out wrong, and sometimes dangerous. . . .
She declined to be interviewed for this article.

Gee, that last sentence is a real shocker. Not. Anyway, read the whole thing. It’s worth it, if you have time to kill and need more confirmation of what we already know: that Oprah is an egomaniac lowlife spouting nonsense eagerly gobbled up by masses of stupid women sheep-ettes.
Even if Newsweek didn’t say it quite that way, glad to see someone other than me is finally having the guts to say it.
If only the magazine had the guts to delve into the rest of her BS, rather than just snake-oil health claims she’s pimping.
And if only Newsweek had the guts to do this when it was actually a well-read, liberally biased news weekly, instead of a dying on the vine waste of time.
**** UPDATE: Forgot to mention that one of my friends, a medical professional, has been a critic of Oprah’s medical and health quackery for years. This person has an excellent site, JailForOprah.com, detailing all of the dangerous baloney she’s been spreading. Check it out.