Obama And Oprah

by Ben Crystal 
Life plays rough. Today, you’re on top of the world. Tomorrow, you may well be knocked off your high rise perch by an unforeseen financial hit, sudden illness or even someone in a Federal Emergency Management Agency windbreaker. And I’m hardly a pessimist. Hell, I still think America can recover from this loathsome era to which future history texts will refer as “the President Barack Obama Years” in the same gloomy tones they currently employ to describe the Spanish flu.
Lest you think you’ve spent more than your fair share of time at the business end of life’s cruel twists, consider this: It could be worse. You could be Oprah Winfrey. While you’re trying to solve mundane problems like making your mortgage payment after some Obama crony’s “green energy” boondoggle went belly-up and left you jobless, Oprah is fighting against prejudice in the European fashion retail industry. While you’re contending with an Internal Revenue Service audit because they saw your name on a Tea Party mailing list, Oprah is struggling to make sure the “right” celebrities have a sympathetic ear to which they can turn when the movie-going public gets tired of their self-important ranting. And while you’re pawning the watch your grandfather left you in order to pay for your kids’ Christmas presents, Oprah is playing defense for that poor victim of evil racism: Obama.

According to Winfrey, Obama’s endless series of scandals stem not from his comic incompetence, nor from his seemingly pathological mendacity. Much like poor Winfrey herself, Obama is stymied by that old serpent: racism. While in England to promote her latest big-budget blockbuster “The Butler,” Winfrey faced BBC interviewer Will Gompertz. Naturally, Gompertz asked Winfrey about Obama’s struggles. And naturally, Winfrey doesn’t think her good friend is to blame for his Administration’s issues.
“I think that there is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs in some cases and maybe even many cases because he is African-American. There’s no question about that. And it’s the kind of thing that nobody ever says, but everybody’s thinking it.”
According to one of the world’s most important women, Obama’s string of face-plants isn’t a result of his own dishonesty; it’s a result of people who won’t tolerate his lying because they’re racists. Supplicating himself to terrorists — not to mention to Russian President Vladimir Putin — isn’t a failure on Obama’s part; objecting to it is a failure on yours. Using the IRS as a baton upside the proverbial skulls of his countrymen isn’t Obama’s character flaw; refusing to lie down for the beating is yours. And lying about Obamacare at least as many times as he did about Benghazi, Libya, doesn’t mean Obama isn’t worthy of the Oval Office; but decrying it means you’re unworthy of him. The poor guy! If only I had known how hard it is to be President of the United States, I might have been more forgiving of Obama’s legacy of deliberate failure. No wonder Winfrey feels it necessary to ride to Obama’s rescue; he’s having almost as hard a time enjoying free golf and Las Vegas fundraisers as she has trying to get special personal shopping hours at the Paris Hermes store. Horrors! 

I don’t deny racism exists; even in this boy’s America. The Democrats’ attacks on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Army veteran and former Congressman Allen West or former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have settled that question. What’s worth noting is that Thomas, West and Rice have not paid much attention to the liberals who decry them simply because of their race. Those three — and many others — recognize that the Democrats’ tendency to assault people solely based on their skin color is as silly as the Democrats’ tendency to defend people solely based on their skin color. West is no more a bad guy because he’s black than Obama is a good guy for the same reason. Of course, West can take the heat, whereas Obama runs and hides behind race-baiting pseudo-intellectuals like Winfrey.
By the way, Winfrey did grace us with a solution to that racism her good buddy Barack must battle: “There are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die.”
By Winfrey’s reckoning, that’s a lot of people. If you’ve voiced opposition to Obama’s excesses, she’s probably including you in that group. Winfrey wants you dead. Nice knowing you.