David Cole pens another “read the whole thing”:
Whether you’re preserving the Union, inciting a World War, incinerating a couple hundred thousand Japs, or getting up to some mischief in a Tonkin Gulf, indifference to human life is kind of a must. Reckless indifference is helpful, but depraved indifference? Now, that’s the stuff of presidential legend. (…)
Oprah is practically defined by her depraved indifference to human life. During the course of her storied career, Oprah has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to put any number of lives at risk for the sake of her show’s ratings, and I have no doubt she’d be willing to do the same for the sake of her political agenda were she to become president. (…)
To be clear, all the other daytime talk shows jumped on the “satanic ritual abuse” bandwagon as well, but Oprah was the only one to make it about Jews, with no concern for how this idiotic falsehood might impact ordinary Jewish folks (for whatever it’s worth, statistics showed an apparent rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes in the second half of ’89). Oprah met privately with Jewish leaders to hear their grievances, but she steadfastly refused to make an on-air apology for the misinformation she presented. So to those on the far right who may be tempted to dismiss Oprah as good presidential material, keep in mind, here’s someone who resurrected the Jewish blood libel, broadcast it to 7.6 million homes, and refused to cave to the demands of Jewish groups to publicly apologize. Winfrey/Duke 2020?
