Free Republic

The popular TV personality helps Barack Obama draw big crowds while her fans fume WITH less than a week until Iowa's first vote is cast in the 2008 presidential election, the politicians aren't the only ones feeling the heat: Celebrities, who have become important players in the political fundraising process, are under increasing pressure to campaign for their favorite candidates in the early caucus and primary states. But how a star -- particularly a supernova -- responds isn't always a simple matter of "yes" or "no." With the exception of Oprah Winfrey, who's been working the trail with mixed results...

MANCHESTER, N.H.—Oprah Winfrey is poised to campaign for White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Obama made the disclosure while working a crowd at Central High School here, after delivering an education policy speech. A man, Ralph Hoagland, asked Obama—who was mingling and shaking hands-- if Oprah was going to stump for Obama in New Hampshire. “First she’s coming to Iowa,” Obama told Hoagland, who in 1963 was a co-founder of what is now the giant CVS pharmacy chain. “But we’ll talk about it. We’ll get her up here.” A...

January 15, 2006 -- "There is truth, and that is all that matters." So goes the mantra - repeated every other page or so - in James Frey's best-selling, Oprah-touted memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," in which he portrays himself as a scum-of-the-earth, drug-dealing outlaw who finds redemption in a rehab clinic. But the scribe - who was exposed last week for exaggerating his criminal past - has in fact lived a privileged life. Born in Cleveland to a well-to-do family, he moved to St. Joseph, Mich., at age 12, when his father, Bob, was named assistant general counsel for...

Ann Coulter says Katie Couric is “the affable Ava Braun” of daytime TV. But Couric’s got nothing on Oprah Winfrey. Oprah is the affable Joseph Goebbels of daytime talk . . . of chick magazines . . . of Oprah seminars—and every other medium in which the self-anointed high priestess of the religion of Oprah has her hands. Through all of these, Oprah preaches “how to be your best self” and “live your best life.” Unfortunately, a predilection for radical Islam and excusing terrorists is a prominent element of Oprah’s “best self.” Cheating husbands don’t get off as easy as...