Oprah's Couch for Obama only [View All]

Oprah Winfrey may be getting behind Barack Obama's presidential campaign with vigor this year -- she'll raise $3 million for him when she holds a fundraiser at her California estate on Saturday.

It means she'll be wading into the political world as never before. In 2000, she had Al Gore and George Bush for guest appearances. And California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has dropped by her couch.

But truth be told, she says she's not that fond of having politicians on her show. In a radio interview rebroadcast on her web site, Winfrey explains why it is the rare exception for her to have politicians as guests on her television talk show.

"The reason I don't do politicians on the show is because you get that political speak thing," she says. "You ask the question. You have a limited amount of time and politicians are usually so rehearsed that you don't get a real answer. And so, I'm sitting there grinning, smiling, when I know I havn't gotten the answer. And to get the answer to one question with some clarity takes so much time that I, in the past, have just not done it."

This year, she says, Obama will be the lone presidential candidate to grace her studio. "If everybody knows I'm for Barack it would be really disingenuous of me to be sitting up there interviewing other people as though... pretending to be objective. So I won't be doing anybody because of that, on my show."

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/09/05/post_59.html