@B.B.: The form on Oprah.com redirects back to the referring page.  You may have followed a link that originated on this blog and so after completing the form (thanks for that) you were redireted to this blog.

Frankly, she's NOT that intelligent. Unless it comes to the intelligence of making bucks off a co-produced new TV show based on fear-mongering and pseudoscience.

As for her achievements, there's pure random dumb luck and other factors. 

I submit the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, as a crystal-clear counterexample to your statement.

Eric said:

I came here from PZ Myers's blog. Maybe his code includes your site as a parameter?

Yeah, PZ Myers hyperlink was : https://www.oprah.com/plugform.jsp?plugId=1985511&referer=http%3A%2F%2Ffaseidl.com%2Fpublic%2Fitem%2F232311

As for the form, I recommended that Jenny McCarthy be lectured by Paul Offit (author of Autism's False Prophets) live on air on the merits of vaccination. Call me cynical, but I somehow doubt they will take my recommendations to heart.

@SocraticGadfly: You may be right.  But I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

As an entrepreneur of almost 30 years, I've been trying to be as lucky as Oprah and I have a sense of how hard it really is to pull off what she has accomplished.  But that's why I am sincerely curious as to what she is thinking about all this.

It reminds me of the question about which is smarter, a cat or a pig?  My favoriate answer is that the cat is smarter at being a cat and the pig is smarter at being a pig.

So, I guess what I'm wonder about Oprah is, what is she smart at?  Is it only the Harpo bottom line?  Or can she be smart at looking at the world through a wider angle lense?

I hope so.  But as my dad would frequently remind me as a kid, "actions speak louder than words."  At the moment, I'm not keen on what Oprah's actions are saying.

@Andy: Totally agreed on her actions. If she is smart, let's say it's smart within the talk-show TV ropes and not in scientific or analytical intelligence.

And beyond my earlier snark, there is still the thing called pure dumb luck!

Take W. If Gary Mauro doesn't run against him in 1998, when all other Dem leaders in Tejas said don't do it, W. doesn't get an aura or whatever.

"Why would Oprah do this?  She's obviously an intelligent woman—nobody achieves what she has without being intelligent.  Is she so focused on the bottom line that she has not taken the time to educate herself about McCarthy's anti-vaccination stance and its real implications?  Has she taken the time but does not understand (and has she no advisers that understand)?  Does she understand but not care?"

Are we thinking of the same Opera? Maybe you've heard of Dr. Phil? Or The Secret, perhaps? You don't have to be very smart if you make your money by appealing to stupid people, I guess.