Oprah is slipping.
At a time when the Manti Te’o imbroglio has begun to feel like it was all an anchovy-and-Anheuser-induced dream, we’re reminded that the story of a fake dead girlfriend has yet to die, thanks to Katie Couric.
Katie, not Oprah (who perhaps could have closed the deal by explaining that Steadman is fake, too), has finagled the first televised TV interview of Te’o -- not to be confused with the non-televised TV interview conducted by Jeremy Schaap of ESPN. According to the New York Times, the sit-down will be televised on Thursday.
Coincidentally (or not), the T’eo family has hired a spokesman who has served as Couric’s spokesman for an extended period of time.
So, in other words, we don’t expect much.
All we expect/hope for at this point is the truth, or something close to it. The entire situation continues to create a sense that we’re being sold a version of reality other than the truth. From a half-hearted investigation by Notre Dame to Te’o’s reluctance to answer questions from ESPN on camera to the decision to dump the outcome of a 2.5-hour interview onto the Internet in the wee hours of a Friday night to the lingering inconsistencies in the story to the admitted lies about meeting the fake dead girlfriend to an effort by Schaap and Te’o to address his ongoing comments about the fake dead girlfriend after December 6 that bordered on an Abbott and Costello routine to the unexplored question of whether and to what extent Ronaiah Tuiasosopo perpetrated this fraud for possible financial gain, something stinks worse than the rotting corpse of a fake dead girlfriend.