Some on the left damned Oprah with slight praise or no praise at after her magnificent speech at the Globes on Sunday night. A few even upbraided her for one thing or another unrelated to the speech. And, not least, an old picture of her with Harvey Weinstein made the rounds.

Such reactions are incredibly insensitive, to put it nicely, to a very famous and accomplished African American woman who had just captured before an audience of tens of millions this shape shifting moment better than anyone else has up to now  — not to mention reveal a tin (or should I say callous) ear to the desires of women to work and live in workplace and country in which they aren’t the objects of sexual harassment and violence.

After reading these critiques, I asked myself — is it any wonder that the left has been on the margins of U.S. politics for more than a half century, notwithstanding a few upticks over the decades? Millions of women loved Oprah’s speech. And I hope millions of men did too. We can do better.