Discovery Channel's Greatest American # 9: Oprah Winfrey

The notion that Oprah Winfrey is one of the 10 greatest Americans who ever lived is a wonderful benchmark of how far we've fallen in this Age of Oprah.

Oprah's story is nonetheless inspiring. She is every bit the self-made woman, building an enormous media empire out of her charisma and boundless energy. She is very smart and a savvy businesswoman. Success such as hers does not result from random chance. It takes brains, talent, ambition, and drive, all of which she possesses in abundance.

That doesn't make her one of the ten greatest Americans, however, given that much of the empire she's built rests on the cult of victimization she used for its foundation. We are all victims, the Cult of Oprah chants. We are as we feel.

It's nonsense, and destructive nonsense as that, as the "repressed memory" imbroglio amply demonstrates.

I admire Oprah. Sincerely.

But I think on balance she's been a negative for this country. I wish her adherents would adopt the classic American virtue of self-reliance as their symbol instead of this navel-gazing nonsense. I cannot watch her show, charming as she is, for wanting to vomit at the faux therapeutic nature of the weakness-wallowing which infests it.

Be strong. Have faith. Laugh. Do something.

But whatever you do, don't talk about it. Endlessly. While nodding your head in faux empathy.

Please.