Oprah for President!
Maybe you’ve heard the internet chatter to run Oprah for president. Aiiee Carumba! I guess I need to watch more TV. Seems to me we’re looking for politicians who are popular television personalities now. Reagan, Trump, now Oprah. Dr. Oz for Vice President. Dancing with the Stars winners for cabinet posts. Maybe we’ll like government better if we fill it with our favorite stars of screen and TV.
On the other hand, maybe we should just have a National Lottery. No skills needed, just luck. A lot of luck, the kind that might take a person a long ways with trade negotiations, arms deals, welfare reform, tax reductions, Supreme Court nominations, health care fixes, all those decisions we thought took professionals with expertise and experience. I guess we don’t need that now. We need someone with ratings. We need someone with luck. That’s all we need.
Civilizations fall. Greece, Rome, the Mayans, the Incans, Aztecs, American Idol. Way of the world. Somewhere along the line the droughts hit, food becomes scarce, plagues decimate the population, the neighbors wage war, leaders become too corrupt or too inbred or too inept. Ratings go through the bottom.
Always something as we say on the South End, yet another lost civilization. Why not take a run at TV game show hosts running the machinery? Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune. One luck, one trivial pursuit. Spin the wheel, pick a door or a curtain, go for the Daily Double. Sure you could lose it all on a single roll, that’s the fun for us in the audience. I’ll take the Middle East for $600, Alex. “What is the 6 Day War?” No???
The Oprah brand is as vast as Trump’s. As president she can recommend books, offer magazine subscriptions, dole out sympathy. We can struggle together with her weight issues, follow her tabloid accounts. We can hope she heals the country. I’ll wager $2700 on U.S. Government, Alex. “What have you got to lose?”
Good try, but sorry, that is not the answer we’re looking for, Skeeter. That leaves you with only $100. Thanks for playing Jeopardy!
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Tags: American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Dr. Oz, Oprah
Do not trivialize Oprah, buddy. Her skill set could possibly be exactly what the nation needs in a leader. I do not hope that she runs, but if she did, I think she could do a lot for the compassion deficit in the country while appointing serious people to actually run the government. We got to see a great talk with Jeremi Suri, Professor of History at U Texas, formerly UW-Madison, about his new book, The Impossible Presidency. He examines 5 or 6 of what he considers the most successful presidencies — both Republican and Democrat — and the common trait is the ability to listen and communicate ideas, to bring together excellent people to execute policy. Not necessarily themselves the brightest or most accomplished people in the room, but the ones who can motivate others to do the things. If you think of it that way, Oprah looks pretty good.
Mister Rogers maybe…. Or is he dead? I’ll take dead over what we got now.