Oprah is flirting with the unforgivable

From People magazine — which, I assure you, I don't read; I discovered this piece on a news aggregator — a perfectly dreadful, Mike Huckabeelike entry:

There’s only one thing that could make Oprah Winfrey run for president in 2020.

Amid calls for her to consider a run for the White House — from fans as well as her closest friends — "I went into prayer," she tells PEOPLE in the magazine’s new cover story. "'God, if you think I’m supposed to run, you gotta tell me, and it has to be so clear that not even I can miss it.' And I haven’t gotten that."

Neither did Huckabee nor any of the dozens of other sanctimonious, sacrilegious Republican charlatans who, over the years, have proclaimed their candidacies to be merely The Will of God — thus they had to run (and invariably lost, which made either them or God a liar). Offhand I can't think of any modern-era Democrat who used the Almighty as a promotional prop. Should Oprah go either psychotic or demagogic, she would invalidate that honorable claim.

Stick to the temporal, Ms. Winfrey. Close your ears to schizophrenic or political siren-song wails. Besides, God has better things to do than to try to guide seven billion people who've had centuries to learn how to behave like decent human beings — and still don't have the hang of it. I suspect the Lord follows the Kantian school of pedagogy: Teach to the middle; the upper species don't need His guidance, and the lower ones — such as us — are too hopelessly stupid to grasp it. 

 

Comments

[Peter G]

There is a third possibility you know. If he or she exists then God might just possess an exquisite sense of humor who tells those who would presume to name drop his name in furtherance of their political to go for it. Just as Obama advised Romney, proceed governors. And God will hold their beer.

[The Dark Avenger]

I think one has to take into account that African-American Christianity allows for this kind of decision-making. Put in In Jesus’ Hands, and go from there. I seriously doubt that she expects to hear God say what to do. My own research is that God “tells” them on a non-verbal level what to do, and of course we accept that ministers, priests and the like, all will publicly state their intention to make a spiritual petition for this or that crisis.

[Eric]

I thought we would realize we should elect qualified people president after this trump fiasco? Zero interest in Oprah running here ...

[Max]

Outside of the evidently trivial, minor detail that she has never held elective or appointive office, knows nothing about history, geography, civics or economics, this once-great American now displays a breathtaking level of narcissism. Fine. We are who we are. Shame on any Democrat who in any way supports this lunacy. It's probably a self-correcting problem.

[Peter G]

I don’t think I would vote for her either Max but I do think your list of things she does not know must have a source. How do you know she knows nothing of the things you list. She strikes me as widely read and that’s how you learn anything. She’s more than a little on the woo-woo anti-science side of things for my taste and I do think that if you need god’s guidance on nearly everything then you lack faith in your own judgement but anybody who looked at the last Republican primary line up would have to admit she is better qualified than ninety percent of them and certainly as qualified as Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side.

[Max]

Yes, she reads. Wow. I mean: wow. Tell me, Peter, if you broke your nose would you call your proctologist? That doesn't even work because at least your proctologist is an MD. No need to bring Sanders into this. It's a measure of how Trump has degraded the discourse that this inane, insane conversation even exists. Were she to run (which is still doubtful) she wouldn't last past New Hampshire.