Taking the Wind Out of Oprah's Sails

There's only one good guy in this whole wildly overblown Oprah/James Frey contretemps over "A Million Little Pieces." (Last night, I made the rounds of the cable news shows hoping for some enlightenment on the stunning Palestinian election results. Silly me. I should have known that Oprah's belated apology and public spanking of her former teacher's pet takes precedence over a momentous geopolitical earthquake.)

The one hero here is the fabulous Smoking Gun web site, which unearthered Frey's fabrications. This of course, is the same great site that had the lowdown on the salacious lawsuit alleging that Bill O'Reilly had some strange sexual habits and also features a mugshot of Bugsy Siegel. (He really didn't look much like Warren Beatty.)

As for the other players here, Frey is just another in a long list of con men who got rich duping the American public. Frankly, I don't care much whether his book continues to sell like hotcakes or whether he vanishes into miserable obscurity. As for Oprah, congrats to her for becoming such a big celebrity that she only needs one name -- like Elvis, Madonna, Bono, Bogey, and Liberace. And perhaps, she really is a feelgood force for positive things in this world. But I had to choke back the gag reflex watching clips of her carefully choreographed performance yesterday. To me, it felt like the secular version of some kind of overwrought televangelism morality play. I think Oprah's amassed too much power and influence for everyone's sake.