Oprah is standing for “change” with Obama, but thus far the biggest change she’s seen is in her approval ratings. Favorable opinion of the talk show host extraordinaire has slipped from 74 percent to 55 percent since she announced her endorsement of Barack Obama for President a year ago. It appears that not even the great O can escape the realities of celebrity endorsements.

Politico.com released a poll of 1.35 million people showing 46 percent of Americans prefer Ellen DeGeneres for their day time indulgence, compared to just 19 percent for Oprah. This red flag for the queen of day time television has not gone unnoticed.

Oprah has proved her business savvy by building a media empire. That awareness seemed to translate into realization of the damage Obama was doing to her image well before national polls figured it out. She has decided not to take a Huckabeean approach, and quietly, but quickly, got out. While still maintaining her support for Obama she hasn’t campaigned with him since South Carolina in January.

The unfortunate part is that neither Obama nor Oprah has gained much at all. While Oprah’s lost market share has only yielded a damaged brand, polls show Obama didn’t gain much from the endorsement either. ABC News and The Washington Post reported 82 percent of voters considered Oprah’s endorsement meaningless.

But don’t tell Oprah she should have just given money. “I think that my value to him, my support of him, is probably worth more than any check,” Oprah told Larry King. Never mind that the ABC/Post poll also showed that while 8 percent said her support would make them more likely to vote Obama, 10 percent said they were less likely to support him.

In the end, Oprah hasn’t proved immune to Hollywood’s historical price for outspoken political beliefs. Consider Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Alec, Baldwin, the Dixie Chicks, and the late Charlton Heston. Status doesn’t always translate into effectiveness and the personal cost may not be worth the potential political gain.

So says Oprah Winfrey, who over the weekend told women viewers they should not feel guilty about supporting a man over a woman for president:

“Being free means you get to think for yourself,” she said, “and you get to decide for yourself what to do.”

Responding to criticism she received after stumping for Barack Obama, Winfrey said she’s not a traitor to her gender, as some had alleged: “I’m just following my own truth, and that truth has led me to Barack Obama.”

In this election cycle, religion is showing up in novel and surprising ways. We have seen religion playing a prominent role since Evangelicals broke their isolation in the late 1970s. Since then, we have seen the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Preacher Pat for President and, on the Democratic side, Reverends Jackson and Sharpton. In the campaign for 2008, we have a Baptist minister advertising his “Christian leadership” as he surges ahead in Iowa, and even Hillary Clinton (amazing grace!) has found religion.

Barak Obama is employing religion in an especially interesting way. Rather than invoking the Savior or pointing to Him, the junior Senator from Illinois is claiming to be the Savior…or at least supporters who are intimately close to him are doing so.

It seems that Obama may be transforming from a man of faith into an object of faith. In his column, “Obama the Messianic,” (The New York Post is more aptly titled “Oprah the Apostle”), Rich Lowry observes Oprah’s anointing of Sen. Obama as what she called “the one” who was to come. You can view the video here, or at BarakObama.com.

In a her long introduction to the candidate before a packed South Carolina stadium, Oprah Winfrey said, “We need politicians who know how to tell the truth. But more important, we need politicians who know how to be the truth.” (The emphasis was hers.) Barak Obama, a professing Christian (though his Evangelical orthodoxy is at least open to question, such that even David Brooks can see it), is surely familiar with Jesus’ messianic claim to divinity, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Michelle Obama seems to be following this Messianic theme (I have not been able to locate the source): “We need a leader who is going to touch our souls, who’s going to make us feel differently about one another.” Of course, Jesus does that. It’s called spiritual regeneration — being born again. To Michelle, Obama is the Life. To Oprah, he is the Truth.

What does the prophet Barak say? In a South Carolina church a few weeks ago, he said that, through the new politics that he will bring, we will “create a kingdom right here on earth.” Did the congregation gasp as they should have? I doubt it.

The American Revolution was, as Martin Diamond put it, one of “sober expectations.” It recognized the sinful depravity of man and designed a constitution that could bring out the best in us and manage the worst in us. It was the French Revolution that promised “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,” a Republic of Virtue. Obama’s rhetoric, and that which he is condoning, places him in the radical French tradition which led of course to the Terror and to Napoleon’s tyranny. Excessive expectations for what is possible to achieve through politics always do. Hillary Clinton is more practically political, less inspiring, and even more selfish, and in those respects — believe it or not — she is a safer candidate. (A previous reflection on the longings of the soul and immoderate politics, “Community and the Longing Soul,” is relevant here.)

Oprah then suggests that Obama is perhaps not a god or a person within the Godhead, but rather a more highly evolved form of our species. “We are here to evolve to a higher plane. And the reason I love Barak Obama is because he is an evolved leader who can bring evolved leadership to this country.”

In the immediately preceding statement, Oprah claimed that Obama would not only love our country, but also love our enemies: “All human hearts are the same. Every mother losing her son in every country feels the same.” This simply repeats the peacenik arguments from the 1980s that, because “the Russians love their children too,” there is actually no threat of war coming from the Soviet Union. They skipped over the fact that even that argument depended upon maintaining credible nuclear and conventional threats. Oprah’s own argument does not, of course, account for the women who have supported their children in their suicide bombings. Nor does it account for the little influence that tender hearted women have in our enemy nations. But not to dwell too long on an entertainer’s silly remark.

She then adds that, “We need a president who cares about our friends and also cares about our enemies.” Does Senator Obama stand behind this statement? Does he propose that, when he is President, he will be above politics, above the America-world distinction, the friends-enemies distinction? Would he see himself as representing not just American interests, but in some way the worldwide common good? Does he understand that there are irreconcilable conflicts between national interests or between various local aspirations? He is so unseasoned, and he presents himself as being so idealistic, that I would take nothing for granted.

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) will resign from the Senate to pursue “other opportunities,” congressional sources say — possibly more lucrative lobbying opportunities.

Oprah is stumping for Barack Obama, but TIME doubts that she’ll do him much good. USA Today, however, is impressed that Obama is storming Iowa with a “front-runner’s swagger.” Fred Thompson has endorsed a voluntary flat tax, and Mike Huckabee says he is the only candidate who can defeat “the Clinton political machine.”

Writers and producers are “cautiously optimistic” that the TV writers’ strike may end by Wednesday.

A new report says that Washington D.C. is experiencing a modern HIV epidemic that crosses racial, ethnic, and gender lines.

Pres. Bush says that he’s optimistic about Middle East peace conference in Annapolis. He may be more hopeful than the others involved: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. FOX News analyzes the risks.

The US may be in Iraq for a long time, now that Bush and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki have signed a declaration that paves the way for a long-term stay.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has returned from exile “to save Pakistan and save democracy,” he says. Pervez Musharraf, military dictator, ousted Sharif in 1999 and established martial law earlier this month.

A British schoolteacher in Sudan was arrested for letting her classroom name a teddy bear Muhammmad. The 54-year-old teacher may face a punishment of 40 lashes.

Readers: Feel free to post newsworthy links we overlooked!

It’s official. Oprah Winfrey is hitting the campaign trail in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to stump for Barack Obama. While some strategists believe Oprah “will help Obama reach stay-at-home moms and other women who do not closely follow politics,” others say the plan could backfire:

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