Bush had hit a home run straight out of her ballpark. When Chris Rock appeared a few months later he blamed Oprah for handing the White House to the Republicans.

"You made Bush win. He came here and sat in the chair and you gave the man a win. You know you did."

"I did not," she said with an unconvincing laugh.

Gloria Steinem sided with the comedian. In her profile of Oprah for Time, Time, she she wrote, "Only when she leaves her authentic self behind does she lose trust, as when she aided the election of George W. Bush."

A few weeks after Bush became president, Oprah asked for an interview with Laura Bush for O O magazine, and while she and the First Lady were talking in the family magazine, and while she and the First Lady were talking in the family quarters at the White House, the president poked his head in, saying he wanted to greet the next president of the United States. "Thank you for coming to see Laura," he said, "and letting her show her stuff."

Days after 9/11 shattered the country, the White House called Oprah and asked if the First Lady might appear on her show to address teachers and parents on how they could help their children through the trauma. Oprah welcomed Mrs. Bush on September 18, 2001, and they walked onstage hand in hand to try to rea.s.sure a nation that had been profoundly shaken by the horrific attacks. Reflecting the mood of the country at the time-a desire and need to come together to try to understand what had happened--Oprah presented shows on "Islam 101," "Is War the Only Answer?" and "What Really Matters Now?"

She also did a show featuring Afghani women t.i.tled "Inside the Taliban," which prompted another call from the White House, asking her to join Mrs. Bush, Communications Director Karen Hughes, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as part of an official U.S. delegation to visit Afghani girls returning to school after the fall of the Taliban. Oprah declined, saying she was too busy, when in fact she, like many, was too scared to travel in the wake of the terrorist attacks. She canceled a trip to launch O, The Oprah Magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine, in South Africa in April 2002, saying, "I started feeling in South Africa in April 2002, saying, "I started feeling uncomfortable about traveling. My instinct says things aren't right in parts of the world.

All parts."

The White House leaked the story to the press on March 29, 2002, that Oprah had said no to the president and, as a consequence, the trip, designed to dampen images of global violence, had to be postponed. A controversy ensued over Oprah's rejection after her publicist told the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune, "Given her responsibility to the show, she isn't "Given her responsibility to the show, she isn't adding anything to her calendar. She was invited, but she respectfully declined."

The headlines kicked up a media storm: "Winfrey Won't Tour for Bush" ( New York Times New York Times) "Envoy Oprah a No-Go: Talk Queen Declines Bush Invite to Tour Afghanistan Schools" ( New York Post New York Post) "No Oprah, No Afghan Trip" ( Washington Post Washington Post) "Winfrey Declines Bush Invite to Afghan Trip; US Hoped to Show Its Help for Women" ( Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune) "Oprah Balks; Talk Show Diva Refuses Afghanistan Invitation" ( Daily News Daily News [Los [Los Angeles]) A columnist from the Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune wrote: "It's great to live in a country in wrote: "It's great to live in a country in which a black woman finally has the power and the self-esteem to say no to the man in charge."

That triggered a letter to the editor about what looked like a blatant snub: I lost a lot of respect for Oprah when she declined our president's invitation to join the U.S. delegation to tour Afghanistan's schools. What a wonderful opportunity she had to spread good will around the world on behalf of America.

I'm sure she could have worked around her "busy schedule" as payback for all the opportunities and good fortune she has been given in our land of the free. Has she forgotten where she came from? Shame on her!

In a swivet over the negative publicity, Oprah called her friend Star Jones, then appearing on The View, The View, to say the White House story was untrue. Jones went on the air to say the White House story was untrue. Jones went on the air moments later to share Oprah's call: [S]he had some fund-raisers that she had committed to and anybody knows when you do these things...people sell tickets expecting you to be there. So she couldn't get out of doing [them] and she didn't want to because she had made the commitment.

She said the White House told her they were going anyway. Then she said, "So imagine my surprise, I wake up and read in the newspaper that I'm being cavalier, I'm too busy." She said it didn't happen that way and it really wasn't fair. We all know what kinds of philanthropic things that Oprah does across the country and across the world so that wasn't fair.

She did say, "Star, I felt extremely used by the Bush administration."

Yet within six months Oprah appeared to be helping the president in his lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. On October 9, 2002, she presented a show to "help you decide if you think we should attack Iraq." Although she featured speakers on both sides of the issue, she gave more time and weight to those who supported going to war. At one point a member of the studio audience stood to question the existence of weapons of ma.s.s destruction, and Oprah cut her off, saying the weapons were "just a fact," not something up for debate. "We're not trying to propaganda--show you propaganda--we're just showing you what is," Oprah said.

Immediately after the show, the antiwar website Educate-yourself.org published a letter to Oprah, saying: A talk show host and idol to many, you usually present an open exchange of opinions. How could you allow such an unbalanced show like that to air, when the future of the entire planet is at stake?

The Swedish Broadcasting Commission also pounced, saying Oprah's show, one of Sweden's most popular daytime programs, betrayed bias toward a U.S. attack on Iraq.

"Different views were expressed, but all longer remarks gave voice to the opinion that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States and should be the target of attack,"

stated the commission. The Swedish government strongly opposed the invasion, saying it lacked a UN Security Council mandate.

Neither objection fazed Oprah. Needing the approval and good opinion of others, she preferred joining the establishment to jabbing it, and the establishment view then was in support of invading Iraq. Temperamentally, Oprah would have been uncomfortable putting herself in the minority by questioning the president's policies, especially in the wake of 9/11, when any kind of dissent was looked upon as unpatriotic. Fox News's Bill O'Reilly had announced, "I will call those who publicly criticize their country in a time of military crisis...bad Americans." Later Oprah presented a two-part program, "Should the U.S. Attack Iraq?" on February 6 and 7, 2003, and claimed she received hate mail, calling her "the N N word" and telling her "to go back to Africa" because she was not pro-war word" and telling her "to go back to Africa" because she was not pro-war enough. That was her last show on the subject. The United States invaded Iraq on March 30, 2003.

Four.

years later, Bill Moyers Journal produced a compelling ninety-minute produced a compelling ninety-minute program on PBS t.i.tled "Buying the War," which showed how the mainstream media had abandoned their role as watchdogs and became lapdogs for a failed policy that cost thousands of American and Iraqi lives. Moyers, who received an Emmy for his doc.u.mentary, included Oprah in his condemnation of the media.

At the time she seemed to be cheerleading for the Bush administration, Oprah had attracted numerous complaints to the Federal Communications Commission for airing explicit s.e.xual material during hours when children watched television. Particularly at issue was a show t.i.tled "Is Your Child Living a Double Life?" in which Oprah and her guests spoke graphically about the s.e.xual slang and s.e.xual acts of teenagers. "If your child said they had their salad tossed...would you know what they meant?" she asked viewers. She then provided the graphic and salacious definitions of "tossed salad,"

"outercourse," "booty call," and "rainbow parties," which prompted a barrage of complaints to the FCC. Shock jock Howard Stern tried to air her remarks on his radio show the next day, but his New York station manager bleeped them for obscene and indecent language. "But it's Oprah," protested Stern, who had been fined almost $2 million by the FCC for using similar language. Without friends in high places, he felt that he was being held to a double standard.

One of the FCC complainants against Oprah agreed. "The very day that Howard Stern was fined, Oprah broadcast s.e.xual and excretory material that was even more explicit," wrote Jeff Jarvis, the former television critic of TV Guide. TV Guide. "I've complained and "I've complained and so have many others. But you can bet she won't be fined...." Claiming that Oprah had done her show on teen s.e.x just to get the subject of s.e.x on the air, Jarvis called her a hypocrite. "Oprah: You can't act as if you don't bear considerable responsibility for this.

You brought s.e.x to afternoon TV. Now I don't think you should be fined for that and I don't think you should be taken off the air for that: I just don't watch you. But you're doing nothing different from Howard Stern--except getting away with it. So cut your holier-than-thou disapproval of s.e.x on the rest of TV. You are the Queen of Trash."

The Santa Barbara News-Press, which served the area where Oprah's mansion in which served the area where Oprah's mansion in Montecito was located, also noted the hypocrisy. "What parents want their kids to come home from school, run to turn on Oprah and be subjected to that stuff?" wrote Scott Steepleton, a.s.sistant metro editor. "The time has come for the FCC to stop applying the law in such an arbitrary fashion. If it's crude, it's crude--no matter whose show it's on."

Yet the FCC ruled in 2006 that Oprah's show on teenage s.e.x was not indecent because the explicit language was not used to shock.

One can only wonder if the FCC was out of order during the February sweeps of 2006 when Oprah did a show t.i.tled "Women Who Use s.e.x to Find Love." She interviewed a woman, given the fict.i.tious name of Jennifer, who claimed to have had s.e.x with ninety men, keeping an ongoing list and video diary of her one-night stands. Oprah stunned the blogosphere when she said to Jennifer, "So you've had men e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e in your face who you don't even know who they are." The mainstream media did not comment on the Jennifer show, but Robert Paul Reyes, on AmericanChronicle.com, accused Oprah of trolling the gutter to rack up ratings.

"Millions of women tune in to you for inspirational and educational programming and you interview a nymphomaniac who's had unprotected s.e.x with almost 100 guys?"

Unfazed, Oprah may have felt immunized from FCC pressure because of her relationship with the Bush White House, so she continued presenting tabloidy s.e.x shows intermixed with feel-good and do-good shows. A partial list of 2004-2009 shows: "Is Your s.e.x Life Normal?" (2/19/04) "Is Your Child Living a Double Life?" (3/18/04) "Secret s.e.x in the Suburbs" (11/19/04) "Wife Swapping" (12/27/04) "Venus, Serena and Jada Pinkett Smith on Dating, s.e.x and Weight" (3/30/05) "Releasing Your Inner s.e.xpot" (5/31/05) "Women Who Use s.e.x to Find Love" (2/23/06) "Female Teachers, Young Boys, Secret s.e.x at School" (4/27/06) "Why Do Men Go to Strip Clubs, and Other Burning Questions" (1/1/07) "237 Reasons to Have s.e.x" (9/25/07) "How They Revved Up Their s.e.x Life" (8/27/08) "Behind Closed Doors: s.e.x Therapy" (10/2/08) "s.e.x Therapy 2: Fears, Fantasies and Faking It" (11/21/08) "Best Life Week: Relationships, Intimacy and s.e.x" (1/9/09) "s.e.x: Women Reveal What They Really Want" (4/03/09) "How to Talk to Your Kids About s.e.x, with Dr. Laura Berman" (4/09/09) "14 Years Old: They Say They're Ready for s.e.x" (4/16/09) "How to Get Your s.e.xy Back Makeovers" (6/15/09) "Former Child Star Mackenzie Phillips' Startling Revelations" (9/23/09) "Mackenzie and Chynna Phillips, Jay Leno and Harry Connick Jr." (9/25/09) As much as she may have helped George W. Bush get elected president, Oprah did even more for Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2003 race for governor of California. "Both of those candidates had real difficulty on policy issues and had issues with women voters," said Mark Sawyer, director of UCLA's Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics. "The 'are-you-a-nice-guy-to-talk-to' aspect of [going on] Oprah Oprah" made both Bush and Schwarzenegger more approachable candidates.

When Schwarzenegger appeared on the show, he was being investigated by the Los Angeles Times for numerous incidents of s.e.xual hara.s.sment over three decades. By for numerous incidents of s.e.xual hara.s.sment over three decades. By the time the newspaper ran its series, there were sixteen women who claimed to have been groped and mauled by him against their will. Most did not come forward voluntarily because they were afraid of reprisals in Hollywood. Some said Schwarzenegger had attacked them in elevators or on movie sets. One said he wrestled her from behind, shoving his hands up her skirt. Another said he grabbed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, threw her up against the wall, and demanded s.e.x. All described his language as lewd and demeaning.

That evening David Letterman joked, "Today the L.A. Times L.A. Times accused accused Schwarzenegger of groping...women. I'm telling you. This guy is presidential material."

Schwarzenegger admitted to telling coa.r.s.e and bawdy jokes in front of women, but he denied all charges of s.e.xual hara.s.sment. Still, his sudden decision to enter California's recall election had exposed his personal behavior to public scrutiny, and so his first interview after announcing his candidacy on The Tonight Show The Tonight Show was on was on The The Oprah Winfrey Show.

"Everyone wanted that interview," Oprah said of her exclusive booking. "But I played the friendship card." She also bathed Schwarzenegger in the warm glow of her acceptance: "Arnold is a mentor to a lot of men, but the thing that they're mentoring is the macho, the muscles. But what makes Arnold Arnold is the balance. He knows and practices sensitivity." She extolled him as a father and lauded the Schwarzeneggers' four children as a tribute to both parents. Such praise from Oprah enabled him to overcome the resistance of women who remembered the boasts of "Arnold the Barbarian" to Oui Oui magazine in 1977 about his drug exploits, gymnasium gang-bang orgies, and demands for oral s.e.x during bodybuilding tournaments.

Weeks before he announced his candidacy he had given an interview to Esquire Esquire comparing himself to a beautiful woman whose looks cause people to underestimate her intelligence: When you see a blonde with great t.i.ts and a great a.s.s, you say to yourself, hey, she must be stupid or must have nothing else to offer....But then again there is the one that is as smart as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s look, great as her face looks, beautiful as her whole body looks, gorgeous, you know, so people are shocked.

His crude and galloping arrogance sparked Molly Ivins to write, "Is it just me, or doesn't he look like a condom filled with walnuts?"

Oprah promoted her new season's premiere, on September 15, 2003, as "my exclusive with Arnold and Maria--the campaign, the rumors, their first interview together, ever ever!" She opened with Maria Shriver, who was familiar to Oprah's viewers from her past appearances, from the many references Oprah made to their friendship, and from the pages she devoted to Maria on her website. They began with girlfriend memories of working together in Baltimore, and Oprah showed pictures of herself at Maria's wedding at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport. Then she asked about her husband's reputation as a womanizer.

"I know the man I'm married to," said Maria. "I've been with him for twenty-six years. I make up my mind on him based on him. Not based on what people say."

"Do you think Kennedy women are bred to look the other way when it comes to marital infidelity?"

"That ticks me off. I have not been quote 'bred' to look the other way. I accept him with all his strengths and all his weaknesses. I'm not perfect either."

Oprah brought up the stories depicting Arnold as a misogynist, and Maria said he was "the exact opposite" of a woman-hater. "He makes me coffee every morning, tells me I'm wonderful, and has been supportive of my career."

Arnold joined his wife in the next segment. Sitting down, he reached over and grabbed Maria's hand. "This woman here has been the most incredible friend, the most incredible wife and mother," he said. Oprah beamed happily, and her studio audience clapped. "They love celebrities," she said later, knowing her show was Celebrity Central for her viewers.

She asked Schwarzenegger about his infamous Oui Oui interview, but he said he interview, but he said he didn't remember it. "The idea [then] was to say things that were so over the top you could get headlines."

"But did you remember the parties, Arnold?"

"I really don't. These were the times I was saying things like 'a pump is better than coming.' "

Maria's hand shot to his face, clamping his mouth shut. "My mother is watching this show. My G.o.d!"

The New York Times later chided Oprah for doing such "a big favor" for later chided Oprah for doing such "a big favor" for Schwarzenegger by having him on her show. Citing the federal equal-time rule, the newspaper said, "Now she needs to do the voters a favor, and extend an invitation to the other top candidates in the California governor's race....[E]ven if Ms. Winfrey has the right to invite only one candidate, it is a poor use of her franchise."

Oprah ignored the editorial advice because the Kennedy franchise was far more important to her. She also dismissed the Nation Nation article t.i.tled "Governor Groper," which article t.i.tled "Governor Groper," which accused her of caring more about "celebrity...than sisterhood," saying that the people who really needed her platform were "women who think humiliating, insulting and hara.s.sing women is something worth talking about." Schwarzenegger won the recall election in 2003 and was reelected in 2006. Oprah contributed $5,000 to his campaign that year, the only political contribution she made.

Having flexed her muscle, she now became a political celebrity herself, and members of the Reform Party set up a website to entice her to run for president, while the doc.u.mentary filmmaker Michael Moore started an online pet.i.tion: We, the undersigned, call on you to declare yourself a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America. We want to hear your ideas on how to straighten this country out and we think you can force the other candidates to stand by their hearts and consciences. At the very least, you can shake things up, but more likely, you can destroy the field and blow through the elections to become our first black President, our first woman President and our first President in recent memory who represents the interests of the American People.

Others took up the call, including the author Robert Fulghum, ( All I Really Need All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten), who also endorsed Oprah for president on his website. This prompted David Letterman to read as one of his "Top Ten Things Overheard at the Republican Weekend": "We've all had it--Oprah just announced her candidacy!" Aaron McGruder's TV series The Boondocks The Boondocks ran an episode t.i.tled "Return of ran an episode t.i.tled "Return of the King," about Martin Luther King, Jr., that ended with a newspaper headline: "Oprah Elected President." The biggest effort to make Oprah commander in chief came in 2003, when Patrick Crowe, a former schoolteacher and owner of Wonderful Waldo Car Wash in Kansas City, Missouri, set up a website selling "Oprah for President" mugs, T-shirts, and b.u.mper stickers. He reaped tons of publicity after publishing the book Oprah for Oprah for President: Run, Oprah, Run! Immediately, the sixty-nine-year-old fan got slapped with a Immediately, the sixty-nine-year-old fan got slapped with a three-page cease-and-desist letter from Oprah's lawyers, citing nineteen copyright violations, plus the unauthorized use of her name, image, and likeness. They gave him five days to respond.

"They should not have sent that letter," Oprah told Larry King. "I didn't appreciate that my attorneys did that."

Mr. Crowe was not intimidated. When Oprah called him to suggest he put his time and energy into supporting Barack Obama, who was not a presidential candidate at the time, Crowe suggested that Oprah give the new Illinois senator a seat in her cabinet.

He then explained to reporters why she would make a great president: "The business genius. The heart of gold. Her ability to get folks to work together...her fierce determination--she's just not a girl you'd wanna mess with."

Although Oprah never ran for public office and said she never would, she possessed immense charisma and represented credibility to millions. In addition, she took stands on issues that alternated between pleasing both Democrats and Republicans. She was for a woman's right to choose. She was against the death penalty, and she opposed guns, legalized drugs, and welfare. She supported the war in Iraq (and then she opposed it). On crime, she recommended hanging drunk drivers, but keeping them alive so they would be continuously tortured "in their privates." A little squishy on religion, she quoted the Bible but did not attend church. She preached self-improvement (makeovers and cleansing fasts) and self-empowerment (believe it and achieve it) sprinkled with the New Agey piffle of The Secret. The Secret. On family values she covered all the bases: she applauded On family values she covered all the bases: she applauded motherhood but for herself she had chosen a career over children; she lived with a man outside of marriage but traveled constantly with her best female friend.

Contradictions aside, Oprah became a towering presence in America, a onewoman cathedral collecting alms for the poor, hearing confessions, and issuing edicts: "Don't chew gum in my presence." "Always bring a hostess gift." "Soak in your tub fifteen minutes a day." "Shop, shop, shop." Dispensing judgments from on high, she chastised Lionel Richie for being an absentee father, thumped Olympic track-and-field star Marion Jones for lying about taking performance-enhancing drugs, and upbraided Toni Braxton for going bankrupt after spending $1,000 for Gucci silverware.

Occasionally Oprah bestowed forgiveness ex cathedra. In a satellite interview with twenty-two-year-old Jessica Coleman, serving a six-year sentence in the Ohio Reformatory for Women for killing her newborn baby when she was fifteen, Oprah was as tough as a hanging judge throughout most of the show. She directed Coleman to tell the story of hiding her pregnancy; having the baby, which appeared to be stillborn; stabbing the infant; and then stuffing its body into a duffel bag, which her boyfriend ended up tossing into a quarry. When the baby was found, the community of Columbia Station, Ohio, named him Baby Boy Hope and gave him a proper funeral. For six years police searched for the infant's killer and found her only after Coleman was overheard in a bar sobbing out her sad story.

"Did you know that at the age of fourteen, I hid a pregnancy?" Oprah asked her. "I was raped at nine and s.e.xually abused from the time I was ten to fourteen. At fourteen years old I became pregnant....The stress of [having to confess my pregnancy to my father] caused me to go into labor, and the baby died [thirty-six days later]....There are a lot of teenagers out there right now who are hiding their secret, just as I hid mine, because...like you, I didn't feel there was anybody I could tell. Your speaking out today is going to give a lot of girls the courage to do that....You are not your past. You are what is possible for you. Own this truth and move forward in your life. Forgive yourself, and others will be able to forgive you."

Oprah's show had become the place where miscreants begged for mercy or, as in the case of NBC's anchorman Brian Williams and news president Steve Capus, defended controversial actions. After airing photos and parts of videos sent by the maniacal killer who shot thirty-two people on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007, NBC was severely criticized for broadcasting the shooter's final hate-filled words before he killed himself.

Many felt the network had been exploitive in giving the ma.s.s murderer national attention without considering the feelings of the bereaved. So a week after the broadcast, Williams and Capus appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The Oprah Winfrey Show.

"We were...very careful as to how many pictures we were showing," Brian Williams told Oprah, "and I think...now, it has all but disappeared."

Oprah set him straight. "It disappeared, Brian, because the people said, because the public said, 'We don't want to see it.' "

Williams looked so chastened that one old-fashioned Catholic watching the show wondered half-humorously if Oprah was going to give him absolution: "For your penance say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. Now make a good Act of Contrition and go in peace."

Like the village vicar, she tended her flock, helping them atone for past sins. She mediated the public apology of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson when he said he wanted to make amends to Evander Holyfield for biting off a piece of his ear during their 1997 t.i.tle bout. Twelve years later the two men came together on her show and shook hands, hoping their reconciliation might set an example to warring gangs of young men.

Although many viewers criticized Oprah for having Tyson, a convicted rapist, on her show, others saluted her. The two Tyson shows, not incidentally, garnered huge ratings at a time when her ratings were slipping.

Oprah continued to be unbending in her condemnation of child abusers, knowing all too well the trauma to victims. Interviewing a man in prison for s.e.xual molestation, she referred to him as "slime." Still, her contradictions could be confounding. While she gave her friend Arnold Schwarzenegger a pa.s.s on s.e.xual hara.s.sment, she condemned rappers because their lyrics debased women. She was unforgiving of racism but pardoned the president of Hermes after his Paris store barred her entry because of alleged "problems with North Africans." Yet she was barely civil to Hazel Bryan Ma.s.sery, who as a young white student had yelled at Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, who integrated Central High School in 1957 after President Eisenhower sent federal troops into Arkansas. In the intervening years, Ma.s.sery had apologized to Eckford for her hateful rants, and the two became close. Oprah invited both women on her show but was highly skeptical of their friendship and would not accept that Hazel's remorse had led to reconciliation. "They are friends," Oprah told her audience in disbelief.

"They...are...friends," she repeated with obvious distaste. She then showed a ma.s.sive blowup of the photograph taken that historic day, showing Elizabeth, silent and dignified, carrying her books into school as a crowd of screaming white students taunted her, the most menacing being Hazel. Oprah was icy as she asked Eckford why that photo still upset her so many years later.

"She [Oprah] was as cold as she could be," Eckford told David Margolick of Vanity Fair. "She went out of her way to be hateful." "She went out of her way to be hateful."

Margolick, who spent time with Eckford and Ma.s.sery to write their story, added, "Characteristically, though, Elizabeth felt sorrier for Hazel. She was treated even more brusquely [by Oprah]."

Still, people flocked to the Church of Oprah. Online there were twenty-eight thousand websites devoted to getting on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and late-night and late-night television's David Letterman, who had been excommunicated for years, began an "Oprah Log," begging to be invited. Oprah ignored him, but he persisted. "It ain't Oprah til it's Oprah," he told his audiences night after night. Soon his fans began holding up signs in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater, in airports, and at football games: "Oprah, Please Call Dave."

After eighty-two nights, Phil Rosenthal advised Oprah in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Sun-Times, "This is a call you have to make....Every night...he is making you look like a humorless, self-important diva who spouts all kinds of New Age plat.i.tudes about forgiveness and positive thought but stubbornly clings to grudges. He's not the one who looks bad in this.

It's a funny bit, and so long as you refuse to play, you're the b.u.t.t of it....You're simply digging in your heels, being stubborn, petty and stupid."

Oprah was still steamed about Letterman's jokes over the years: Top Ten Disturbing Examples of Violence on TV:No. 6:Unknowing guest gets between Oprah and the buffetTop Ten Least Popular Tourist Attractions:No. 3:The Grand Ole OprahTop Ten Death-Defying Stunts Robbie Knievel Won't Perform:No. 8:s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up Oprah Winfrey's lunch orderTop Ten Things You Don't Want to Hear from a Guy in a Sports Bar:No. 1:"Oops--time for Oprah."Top Ten Things Columbus Would Say About America If He Were Alive Today:No. 6:"How did you come to choose the leader you call Oprah?"Top Ten Dr. Phil Tips for Interviewing Oprah:No. 4:Grovel Rapprochement came on December 1, 2005, when Oprah finally agreed to appear on Letterman's show and then allowed him to escort her to the Broadway premiere of The The Color Purple, prompting prompting People People to surmise: to surmise: And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Top Ten Most Likely Reasons Why Oprah Winfrey Ended Her 16-year Rift with David Letterman and Agreed to Appear on His CBS Late Show December 1, 2005:No. 10:She is producing a Broadway musical, The Color The Color Purple, across the street. Nos. 9-1:See No. 10. across the street. Nos. 9-1:See No. 10.

"At last our long national nightmare is over," said The Kansas City Star. The Kansas City Star.

Letterman behaved like a starstruck schoolboy. "It means a great deal to me, and I'm just very happy you're here," he gushed to Oprah. "You have meant something to the lives of people."

An estimated 13.5 million people stayed up to watch that night, giving Letterman his biggest audience in more than a decade. The next day Washington Post Washington Post TV writer TV writer Lisa de Moraes observed: "Letterman had become that which he once mocked. An Opraholic."

It wasn't simply a late-night comic who wanted to bathe in the reflected glory of Oprah Winfrey. To promote his 1,008-page memoir, My Life, My Life, former president Bill former president Bill Clinton appeared on her show (June 22, 2004), sat with her for her Oxygen segment Oprah After the Show, and, hugging her and holding hands, took her on an extended tour and, hugging her and holding hands, took her on an extended tour of his home in Chappaqua, New York, to accompany a long interview in O O magazine. On magazine. On the show, Oprah made a point of saying that "nothing was off-limits," as she directed the former president to read all the pages dealing with his s.e.xual indiscretions.

"What were your feelings toward Hillary during those many times you betrayed her?" she asked.

"I always loved her a lot," he said, "but not always well."

"Weren't you afraid of getting caught?"

Clinton dodged the question, saying he was in a "t.i.tanic struggle" with a Republican Congress, but Oprah pressed.

"You didn't expect you'd be caught?"

"No, I did not," he finally admitted.

She had packed the audience with young, pretty women, whom Jeff Simon described in The Buffalo News The Buffalo News as looking at Clinton at certain moments "the way they'd as looking at Clinton at certain moments "the way they'd look at a chocolate sundae; at others, the way they'd look at an infant's first steps to the couch."

Oprah's ties to Clinton were strong. She attended his inauguration in 1993 and his first state dinner in 1994. In December 1993 she stood by his side in the White House as he signed the National Child Protection Act to establish a database network for all indictments and convictions on child abuse and s.e.xual molestation. This law was known informally as the "Oprah Bill."

Both Southerners from broken homes, Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey had a great deal in common. Each had risen from roots of meager expectations to achieve worldwide success based on a superlative ability to communicate. Both had well-publicized weight problems and were, in the words of Clinton, "secret keepers," who knew how to live parallel lives--one in public, the other in private. Appearing together, they were mesmerizing. He gave her the second-highest overnight rating of the season, and she gave him a boost in book sales. It was a mutually admiring and advantageous relationship until July 27, 2004, when a young man running for the U.S. Senate gave the speech of his life at the Democratic National Convention. That evening Barack Obama's soaring rhetoric and inspiring message rocked the convention and swept him into the hot strobes of national recognition. Among those leaping with joy was Oprah, deeply moved by his magical delivery. "It was one of the most extraordinary speeches I've ever heard," she told him later. "There's a line in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman [a 1974 TV [a 1974 TV movie based on Ernest J. Gaines's novel] when Jane is holding a baby and asking, 'Will you be the one?' While you were speaking, I was alone in my sitting room cheering and saying, 'I think this is the one.' "

After that speech, Oprah, who barely knew the Obamas, asked to interview them for the November issue of O, O, which strategically hit the stands days before the election which strategically hit the stands days before the election that sent him to Washington as only the third African American to sit in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction. By then Oprah had embraced the young senator as "my favorite guy." She introduced him to her viewers in January 2005 as part of a show t.i.tled "Living the American Dream." She honored his wife, Mich.e.l.le, a few months later by including her as a "young 'un" during "The Legends Weekend," and the following year she publicly endorsed him for president, months before he had endorsed himself.

During his Senate campaign, Obama had opposed the Iraq War as unnecessary, and by then Oprah, too, had changed her stance. Subsequently, she invited the esteemed New York Times columnist Frank Rich on her show (October 12, 2006) to discuss his columnist Frank Rich on her show (October 12, 2006) to discuss his book The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina, which indicted the Bush administration for selling the war to the country on false premises. Ent.i.tled "Truth in America," the show included an appearance by Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar of the Poynter Inst.i.tute, to discuss looking at the world from different points of view. He later reported in his online column that Oprah was dynamic, intelligent, funny, charismatic, and beloved by the women in her audience. "She walked out onto the stage, before the cameras started rolling, holding her shoes in her hand, a very down-to-earth image, but when she sat down, her shoe person rushed onstage, knelt down, and put them on for her. A coronation of sorts, if you can crown someone's feet."

At Fox News, Bill O'Reilly was going postal over Oprah devoting her entire show to Frank Rich. "She has declined to interview me, even though I had four number one bestselling books," O'Reilly fumed. He went on the air four nights later with a segment "Is Oprah Fair and Balanced?" during which he claimed that Oprah was "leaning left,"

with her liberal guests far out numbering her conservative guests. He said Oprah was being dishonest with her viewers about her politics. "Wouldn't it be better if she looked everyone in the eye...?" A few days later Oprah invited Obama on her show (October 18, 2006) to talk about his book The Audacity of Hope. The Audacity of Hope.

"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."