15 Nov 2013 Cooper Counters Oprah on Obama, Race and Respect
Billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey, the top celebrity according to Forbes magazine’s ranking, apparently still feels that she is burdened by her race.
And Winfrey similarly believes that President Barack Obama, arguably the most powerful man in the world and Gallup’s “most admired” man since 2008, is equally hobbled by “disrespect” for him and the presidency.
In an interview she gave to the BBC while promoting the film “Lee Daniel’s The Butler,” for which she is expected to be nominated for an Academy Award for her acting, Winfrey said about Obama:
There’s a level of disrespect for the office that occurs in some cases, and maybe even many cases, because he’s African-American. There’s no question about that. And it’s the kind of thing no one ever says, but everybody’s thinking.
Her one reported example of someone doing the opposite and actually bringing that racial animosity right out in open view was when Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) said “you lie!” during Obama’s 2009 speech to Congress in which he touted the benefits of his then just proposed ObamaCare health care takeover.
Winfrey obviously must ascribe to the New York Times analysis that Obama didn’t lie, but simply “clearly misspoke” when he said dozens of times while campaigning for ObamaCare that people could keep their existing health care coverage if they liked it despite this actually being known to be false by members of his own administration. Or the claim that premiums would go down. Or that ObamaCare would not cover abortion.
Winfrey insisted to the BBC that people get special scrutiny because of the color of their skin. She showed her belief of this claim on several occasions in the past when she battled perceived racial slights while on high-end shopping trips to Hermes and Trois Pomme to buy gifts for Tina Turner.
Horace Cooper
, the co-chairman of the Project 21 black leadership network, thinks Winfrey is making much ado about nothing that hasn’t been earned by Obama in a fair and reasonable manner.
Presidents — especially those presidents with failed agendas — are subjects of criticism for how they lead and not for their race, ethnicity or any other demographic factor. Horace explains:
Oprah Winfrey is wrong. The American people have legitimate complaints about President Obama’s leadership and the abysmal rollout of ObamaCare.
Take a look at Presidents Carter and Clinton. You’ll see that leadership failings in the U.S. have nothing to do with race.
Obama can’t hide behind race to blunt his leadership failings, and his cheerleaders such as Winfrey would be well served not to slander the American people during her overseas shopping trips by suggesting otherwise.