"After Changes Upon Changes...We Are, More Or Less, The Same..."

First of all, read, please, the following…

Then, I’ll share my thoughts.

And I think you’re going to find that those thoughts are not what you’re expecting.

(CNN) – Talk show host Oprah Winfrey is denying a report of division within her staff over booking Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin as a guest.

“The item in today’s Drudge Report is categorically untrue,” Winfrey wrote in a statement issued Friday. “There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show.”

Citing sources that had spoken to the news Web site, a

story posted Friday morning on The Drudge Report said “Oprah's staff is sharply divided on the merits of booking Sarah Palin.” “One executive close to Winfrey is warning any Palin ban could ignite a dramatic backlash!,” the story also says.

But Winfrey, a longtime and outspoken supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, is flat-out denying the report. “At the beginning of this presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates.”

Have you already got a fix on where I’m headed here?

That Oprah is talking out of both sides of her mouth because while saying she wont have Palin on the show because “…I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates….”, she has, in fact, already had the Obamas on?

Fair point.

Not my point, though.

That comes one sentence sooner.

“…when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate….”
Oprah has been a public “voice” for over two decades.

22 years this Monday, as a matter of fact.

If memory serves, there have been five presidential elections in that time.

And it would be unfair to assume the obvious.

That she chose a black man to be her first public endorsement simply because he is black.

But, it seems pretty evident that Oprah may be have TV down cold, but she knows from squat about politics.

Because, in politics, if not life, perception is reality.

And a politically savvy Oprah would have known, without being told, that the perception would, without fail, be that she was, in fact, endorsing Obama because of his color.

Kind of ironic, aint it?

A woman who has spent almost two dozen years working to break down stereotypes inadvertantly ends up perpetuating one.

And we’re not even close to having become a colorblind society.

What Oprah is doing is the most sincere and heartfelt use of her celebrity.

It’s just not the smartest.