Celebrities Should Be More Like Oprah (In This One Particular Way, That Is)

Oprah Winfrey, seated in mid-gesture, during her documentary “The Color of Care” on the Smithsonian Channel.

I just read something very impressive by Oprah Winfrey. And I guarantee you, whatever you thought of when you read the that first sentence… it’s not that.

She was doing an interview in the LA Times about her new documentary “The Color of Care.” The interviewer asked her how she would grade the United States’ response to the pandemic. And this was the first sentence of her answer:

“It would serve no purpose for me to try to give the United States a grade on how the response has been.”

Now, there are a couple of ways to interpret this sentence.

Cynically, you can say that she responded like a politician would, ignoring the question that was asked and pivoting into the talking point she was there to discuss. (Her next sentence started with “I am interested in as many people knowing about health disparities,” so that’s certainly part of it.)

Also, to the interviewer, the immediate answer might have seemed like a rebuke, like “enough of your gotcha questions.” I’m sure that person was a little taken aback, but she didn’t disparage the question or the questioner. When NFL or college coaches get asked questions like that, often the tendency is to lash…