Oprah's 'Power List' Is Loaded With Obama Connections

Oprah Winfrey's first "Power List" has lots of links to the Obama White House and other Washington political and government outposts.

The list of 19 living women, along with a blast from the past -- Cleopatra, no kidding -- is featured in the September issue of Winfrey's O magazine. Eleven people on Oprah's power list are in the Obama or Washington loop. They include:

Donna Brazile: Democratic political consultant and TV pundit.

Sheila Bair: Chair, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Mayda del Valle: Chicago poet who performed in May at the White House poetry jam hosted by the president and first lady.

Ann Dunwoody: First female four-star general.

Shirley Ann Jackson: Former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, tapped by Obama as a member of his Science and Technology Advisory Council.

Lilly Ledbetter: Equal-pay crusader. Michelle Obama's first official function as first lady was a Jan. 29 reception to honor Ledbetter. Donna Brazile was among those present. The event came on the same day Obama signed one of his first pieces of legislation, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Anne Mulcahy: The CEO of Xerox was a member of then President-elect Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board.

Michelle Rhee: Chief of D.C. public schools.

Sarah Silverman: The actress starred in a video titled "The Great Schlep," designed to urge elderly Florida Jews to vote for Obama.

Melanie Sloan: Executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Government Ethics in Washington.


Anna Deavere Smith: The actress in April joined the Center for American Progress as an artist-in-residence. The center is sort of a think tank for the Obama White House. CAP President John Podesta ran Obama's transition.