Oprah’s good name is in a ‘million little pieces’

Posted Jan 27, 2006 by Jaymi Curley

Updated Jan 27, 2006 at 04:55 PM

Poor Oprah. It had to happen sometime. After all no good deed goes unpunished. Here she is, just trying to make us poor slobs a little more well-read, and this is the thanks she gets. Duped by hack writer who has watched one too many after-school specials, reviled by the general public for leading her loyal subjects on a literary snipe hunt. No wonder she took a hefty chunk out of James Frey’s backside on her show the other day. Who can blame her? Frey committed the unpardonable sin:embarrassing a media mogul. Oprah’s army has a long reach and a tight grasp. You may as well spread a stick of butter on James Frey, because his career is toast. I hope for his sake he’s putting aside his pennies right now, not blowing them on a wild drug spree through the cold-medicine aisle at CVS.

Miss Oprah should learn a little lesson from this as well.  I am sure there was quite the little powow in her camp when this hit the fan.  “Let’s see…what to do…think, Gayle, think…Steadman, dear, run along to the kitchen and make us a few margaritas, please.” 

Now, I am sure that jumping to Frey’s defense, trying to use her power to make it all seem like much ado about nothing, would seem like the logical thing to do. Make it go away fast and it won’t look like she was a prize nitwit for crowning the little snake with the treasure of her regard. (Oh, and make no mistake, a nod from Oprah is a treasure. A writer who gets an Oprah book club pick basically has alicense to print money. ) But let’s face it, with her reputation and image on the line, until she got a real handle on the way her fans were reacting to the scandal, she should have fallen back on the cushy pillow of ‘no comment’ for a few days.