We don't know whether the idea of Oprah Winfrey for president, inspired by Winfrey's eloquent speech Sunday at the Golden Globe Awards, will prove an ephemeral excitation or a movement with staying power. But we find it depressing.

We mean no disrespect to Winfrey, who strikes us as much better informed and more intellectually curious and presumably less reckless or dishonest than the incumbent president. But it's bizarre that Americans who are appalled by Trump's oafish and ignorant conduct of the nation's highest office would gravitate to another television star untested in politics.

"It's up to the people," Winfrey's longtime partner, Stedman Graham, told the Los Angeles Times. "She would absolutely do it." The speculation snowballed to the extent that a White House spokesman felt obliged to tell reporters that "we welcome the challenge, whether it be Oprah Winfrey or anybody else."

Winfrey is a skilled interviewer, a talented actress, a successful businesswoman and an inspiring orator. In her speech Sunday accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award, she compellingly wove together recognition of victims of sexual assault — not just in Hollywood — with a tribute to racial diversity and a defense of a free press that "is under siege these days." A Washington Post reporter wrote: "Close your eyes and picture this speech being delivered in Des Moines. It's not difficult."

Maybe not, but there is more to being president than the ability to deliver a stirring speech. Also, as the first year of the Trump presidency demonstrated, there are colossal risks in electing a political neophyte to the most demanding public office in the world. Just because the Republicans were foolish enough to travel down this dangerous road — sacrificing many of their party's best qualities and most valuable principles in a desperate, craven hunt for votes — doesn't mean the Democrats should follow suit.

Winfrey might possess a more stable temperament than Trump — who doesn't? — but she would face the same steep learning curve in dealing with foreign and domestic issues. What is there to suggest that she is any better prepared than Trump was to work productively with Congress or tackle international trade negotiations, the North Korean nuclear threat or the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict?

It's a measure of the trauma inflicted on the country by Trump's election that some people honestly believe that the way to unseat a celebrity president is to nominate another celebrity. But the U.S. doesn't need another TV star running the country — even a talented and accomplished one. What it needs is someone who has prepared for the job, who has made tough decisions, who is familiar with the issues, who has a history of public service.

FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE LOS ANGELES TIMES