Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [236]
“I know I don’t just speak for myself,” she said. “There are a lot of people who want to feel the audacity of hope, who want to feel that America can be a better place for everybody. There are a lot of people who would want you to run for the presidency of the United States. Would you consider that?”
Obama danced around the question to talk about the importance of the midterm elections. Then Oprah returned to the subject.
“So, if you ever would decide to run within the next five years—I’m going to have this show for five more years—would you announce on this show?”
“I don’t think I could say no to you.”
“Okay. Okay. So if you ever, ever decided that you would.”
“Oprah, you’re my girl.”
“Okay. That’s all I ask.”
“Fair enough.”
Bill O’Reilly was nearly apoplectic. He, too, had a book (Culture Warrior) to promote, and Oprah had “declined” to have him on her show. “He was so mad that he picked up the phone, called Oprah himself, told her she had no right to be so one-sided by having ‘a Bush hater like Frank Rich’ on to trash the president of the United States,” recalled a Doubleday publicist. “O’Reilly demanded that she be fair and let him come on her show with his book.… He absolutely browbeat her and Oprah was so cowed that she agreed to have him on.”
The show (October 27, 2006), titled “Oprah’s Town Hall with Bill O’Reilly,” with a mostly male audience, allowed O’Reilly to rail against the “secular progressive movement,” or “SPs,” as he called them, which he said consisted of Frank Rich, the American Civil Liberties Union, George Clooney, Hollywood, Holland, mall zombies, the Democratic Party, the FBI, the Clintons, and The New York Times. Traditionalists, on the other hand, included “good folks” like him, President Bush, blue-collar towns, the working class, the little man, people who call Christmas Christmas, and Oprah. At the end of the hour, O’Reilly said, “This is the best show I’ve been on.”
In researching this book, I emailed Bill O’Reilly October 10, 2009, to confirm that he had called Oprah to have him on her show. He did not respond to the email, but upon publication of the book he had me on his show, April 14, 2010. He denied making the call to Oprah but acknowledged that pressure was brought to bear. Two sources within his publishing house recollect the call being made by O’Reilly, who said: “She was fair to me once I got her attention.”
Having proven to Bill O’Reilly she was fair and balanced, Oprah now made a decision that would put her at odds with Fox News as well as the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. Feeling she had found “the One,” she decided to publicly embrace Barack Obama to the exclusion of all other presidential candidates. She had not been happy with those who suggested her show in 2000 had given George W. Bush a winning edge, so this time around she decided to give her powerful platform to only her “favorite guy.”
“If everybody knows I’m for Barack, it would be really disingenuous of me to be sitting up there interviewing other people as though … pretending to be objective,” she said. “So I won’t be doing anybody, because of that, on my show.”
As a talent scout without peer, Oprah recognized telegenic magic when she saw it. After all, she had introduced Dr. Phil, Rachael Ray, and Dr. Oz to America, and their talk shows, all of which she launched, had succeeded beyond industry expectations. The same instincts now drove her to put all her political cards on the table. It was a daring gamble, because Hillary Clinton was expected to be the Democratic nominee, and in going against the first woman with impressive credentials and immense backing who actually had a chance of winning, Oprah stood to alienate many of her female viewers. In supporting