Because one hour of television devoted to Tom Cruise talking about himself just isn’t enough, today will mark the second half of Tom Cruise’s attempt at PR damage control by returning to the scene of his couch-jumping crime on “Oprah.” Cruise was rather subdued on Friday’s episode , apologizing— after a fashion—for his attack on Brooke Shields, his attack on Matt Lauer, and for other assorted gaffes. But what I don’t understand is why everyone is putting all of the focus on critiquing Cruise’s responses and no one is focusing Oprah’s sycophantic lack of journalism when it comes to interviewing one of her two favorite Scientologists (the other being her admitted crush, John Travolta).

The fault, as I see it, with Oprah’s gushing adoration of Cruise is the dissonance it creates with her image as this vessel of knowledge and enlightenment for the masses. There’s something not quite right about the way Oprah is teaching this online class for Eckhart Tolle’s “The New Earth,” but not even remotely questioning anything to do with the facts about Scientology. She never really pressed Cruise for hard answers about the religion, either, on Friday’s episode. Instead, it was more like she was giving Tom a shot at a free sixty-minute infomercial to prove he’s not that crazy after all.
Maybe it’s a case of blind faith on both of their parts—her faith in Cruise and his faith in Scientology—that has made them such an odd pairing. Or maybe it’s a case of blind ambition on both of their parts as they both continue to stoke their celebrity through this on-air fanfest. But while I am sure Cruise’s star is never going to rise again to what it once was, I can’t help but think Oprah’s star is slightly tarnished as well for allowing herself to be a vessel, not for truth, but for one organization’s propaganda.