AGE: 54
OCCUPATION: Talk-show host, television producer, magazine publisher,
actress, power broker
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 1
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 5
PRO: The richest woman in America. The richest African-American in history. As for the age-old question ("Is Oprah not black enough?"), it isn't heard much these days: she was black enough to make Barack Obama black by endorsement. When many wanted her on the ticket, too, Obama said, in all honesty, that it would be a demotion for her.
CON: Oprah's Big Give, her entrée into the altru-reality wish-fulfillment TV genre, has garnered good, but not great ratings. And it remains to be seen whether a prolonged Obama-Clinton trench war might affect her pope-like thrall over American women.