Jeffrey Cimmino at the Washington Free Beacon caught two MSNBC primetime stars going so gaga over Oprah Winfrey it's amazing the camera lenses in their studios didn't fog over. After Oprah campaigned in Georgia on Thursday for black female ultraliberal Democrat Stacey Abrams, the superlatives bubbled over in the transition from Rachel Maddow to Lawrence O'Donnell.
This isn't completely shocking, since NBC tweeted "Oprah is our future president" during the Golden Globes in January.
O'Donnell began the sugary chat: "Rachel, I have a very controversial question for you which we've actually never discussed, even on those long canoe rides we do on the weekends on the lake." Maddow laughed at the whimsical canoe chatter. "It's never come up, and that is, where are you on Oprah? For or against?"
Maddow shot back "Oprah is our hope-rah as far as I'm concerned. When everything else falls to hell, when everything else smolders and the ash collapses, Oprah will still be there to show us the way."
Then O'Donnell boasted "Oprah is one of those people for whom ‘for and against' is obviously a joke. There's no against, except in some crazed precincts."
In that case, welcome to the crazed precinct where we think Oprah is a media-pandering gasbag who tried to distract from Hollywood's terrible #MeToo record at the Golden Globes. In this precinct, we also think she demonstrates 60 Minutes isn't the slightest bit serious about doing objective reporting on politics.
O'Donnell said he woke up on Thursday thinking Oprah "shouldn't be a candidate for anything," that high office requires some training and political experience, not just being a TV star. "That's the country we used to live in. Then I watched her in Georgia, and I was stunned at how good she was on the political stage -- as a politician. That's what she was today, a really effective high-level communicating politician."
Maddow seconded all this emotion: "Yeah, and she was good on notes, when she was reading from notes, when she was coming in there with sort of prepared remarks. She was really, really, really good when she was off her prepared remarks. And part of it that made, I think, people most consider the seriousness of her as a potential candidate was how well she said she didn't want to run. Right? I mean, that's kind of a trifecta, like those are the three things you need to do. That and don't put on a hat and you're pretty much a top-tier candidate."
Even this wasn't enough. O'Donnell added ""But there was, wonderfully, there was nothing in the kind of polished-politician quality of her speech at all. It was raw, and real, and honest, and historical, and thoughtful, and wise, and on point!"
"It was Oprah," Maddow added.
O'Donnell concluded: "It was Oprah. I am a changed—well, not a changed man. I'm a changed political analyst on Oprah."
