"Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” Dalai Lama XIV
August 14, 2013
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Dear Abby:
I can scarcely compose myself. I was up all night crying, worrying about Oprah. Actually even when I think about her now, I tear up.Gosh, I can only imagine her humiliation at not being able to look at that pocketbook in Switzerland. That callous sales clerk! So what if it cost $38,000? Maybe Oprah wanted to buy it! Did the clerk think of that? No, she didn’t! How dare she treat Oprah that way? Doesn’t she know who Oprah is?
I mean the sales clerk may not have known Oprah had an American Express Black Card, I’ll give her that much, but Oprah made sure we all were told she had the mega card afterwards in a lot of TV interviews. She was very proud of the fact. Good for Oprah! Lemons to lemonade!
Oprah was there to attend Tina Turner’s wedding, you know. The nerve of that clerk to force Oprah to tell this story and spoil everything!
Turner makes her home there in Switzerland, so I think she probably was grateful that Oprah chose to tell everyone the "pocketbook story” as soon as she stepped down on the tarmac back home. After all, it was a story that needed to be told, especially with Oprah’s new movie due out which is about the same kind of thing, racism.
And if the clerk loses her job, well, that’s what she gets for being a racist. Right?
I can’t remember if Oprah had a show on this kind of thing, sort of "turn the other cheek,” probably something in a Deepak Chopra segment, but I’m sure Oprah did exactly what she was supposed to do in this case, something very spiritual to make things better.
And then, I have to admit, smack in the middle of my sleepless night, my thoughts turned to the president, someone else who is getting a raw deal.
Would you believe that almost a year after the murders at Benghazi, a Fox reporter – that’s right, that station – had the audacity to ask the president about the investigation, right in the middle of a White House press conference on Friday!
In front of everyone! At a press conference! I was so embarrassed for the president. Imagine putting him on the spot that way! It wasn’t right. No sir. It’s no wonder the Department of Justice kept track of that Fox reporter’s phones. Serves him right.
Then, wouldn’t you know, right on the heels of the press conference, Obama was the target of racial profiling, just like The Oprah.
It happened at the Missouri State Fair. A clown had the bad taste to don an Obama mask and mock the president. I can’t remember that happening to another president, Abby, can you? It must have been intended to be insulting and probably racist, don’t you think?
That sort of thing isn’t good fun the way state fairs are supposed to be and a lot of important people said so, thank goodness.
A Missouri senator, governor and lieutenant governor didn’t hold back when it came to this clown – sorry, I didn’t mean Obama, but the real clown -- rightly calling the "clown story” shameful and a wrong way to spend "taxpayers’ money.”
Good for them! What did that clown think? That he could engage in protected, free speech and get away with it?
Heck, the White House got involved and even the NAACP. You gotta’ hand it to them, those people are on their toes and up in arms when the right issue comes up.
Well, that clown can just kiss his big clown shoes and water-squirting flowers good- bye, because in the twinkling of an eye, he has been banned from performing at the state fair for life and has to go to clown sensitivity training…Oh, and the announcer was fired or quit, too. He said something about Obama.
I know all’s well that ends well, and Obama and Oprah will bounce back, but how can this happen, Abby? How can people be so cruel?
I mean the president does everything he can. He brokered a deal to get Congress and government workers off the hook from having to buy Obamacare, or something like that.
I know the workers at the Internal Revenue Service are worried sick they’ll have to have the same Obamacare you and I are forced to buy, so I’m sure the president will take care of them soon, too.
I mean, what do people want from the president? Give him a break, for goodness sake!
He already has told people a million times that jobs and the economy and the IRS and Benghazi and the AP and Fast and Furious issues are a top priority with him, so give him a chance. Enough already! This is only his sixth year in office.
Now I’ve heard that there may be a few tiny little extra expenditures when it comes to the president’s Obamacare bill. If it’s true, I ask you, how could he have foreseen that? It’s a very, very big bill. He didn’t know.
I know the Georgia Insurance Commissioner wrote to the Department of Health and Human Services and told Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that insurance rates were rising by up to 198 percent under Obamacare in his state, but that can’t be right, can it? Honestly, the things people make up!
Take for instance yesterday. Lester Holt ran a report on NBC Nightly News with details about the adverse impact of Obamacare. He reported that some people will be left "with no insurance and a pay cut!”
OMG. Can you believe this? He’s sounding just like Fox News! I thought NBC had some respect for the president! What will the media come up with next?
In the meanwhile I try to console myself thinking about all the good the president’s party is doing everywhere, all the time.
Why just this week a federal judge appointed by Bill Clinton declared New York’s "stop and frisk” actions by the police unconstitutional, illustrating for sure that the president’s party is doing nothing but good and it shows.
I mean, unconstitutional. That makes sense, right?
Sure the NYPD has to go into crummy, mostly minority neighborhoods because that’s where the crime is and get shot at and all, but what right do these cops have to violate the civil rights of these people?
I mean we don’t know that they do, but there are already enough black people in jails, aren’t there, and I bet the cops are to blame for that in some way, so kudos to this judge, Judge Shira Scheindlin for noticing.
The only thing that makes me feel better is that nobody blames the president for anything, not even the scandals, thankfully. That would really be unfair.
Sure, Abby, I worry about not having a job ‘cause I don’t, and I’m a little squirrely about more illegal immigrants coming into our country and what it will do to jobs, but compared to what Obama and Oprah are going through, I feel silly even mentioning my problems.
So, Abby, what can I do so that America sees the president as the great guy he is? And Oprah, too. I’m worried and sorely need your advice.
Signed, Life Just Isn’t Fair!
Dear Life:
I sure can see where you’re coming from. The knowledge and concern you have exhibited about a variety of issues is truly interesting, yet in some ways, confusing.
I guess the best advice I can give you and other Americans who voted for our president is to just keep on doing what you’re doing, thinking what you’re thinking, voting how you voted and you’ll keep on getting what he’s giving.
As for Oprah, well, you don’t have to worry about her. I am absolutely certain she will continue to have the same level of success being "The Oprah” as she has enjoyed with her cable channel OWN.
The past few weeks she has burst back into the news cycle, garnering news coverage in the way only she and the president can, so as to guide us by example as she used to do with her show.
And, "Life Just Isn’t Fair", I feel absolutely confident in saying that The President and The Oprah will both get what they both so richly deserve when all is said and done. They’re very special.
Hold the line, America.