{alltv} Did Osama Bin Laden Nearly Kill Oprah's Obama Special?

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You would be very hard-pressed to find an American who was anything other than ecstatic, relieved and grateful upon hearing Sunday night's news that American forces had killed Osama bin Laden.

Hard-pressed, that is, unless you knew where to look. And that place was in Oprah Winfrey's Harpo HQ.

While the outgoing talk show queen obviously was all of those things, her emotions came in a slightly more mixed bag than the average patriot as the very next day, her exclusive hourlong sitdown with President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama would be airing.

The problem? It had been filmed in the studio a week earlier, which meant it would contain not one word about the biggest news story on the globe. And thus, not such a great get. In fact, it was a get Oprah actually considered leaving on the cutting room floor, as evidenced by a series of anguished tweets.

Late on Sunday night, Oprah began responding to a series of fan inquiries about her seemingly perfectly-timed sitdown with the Obamas.

"Yes, awake," she wrote to one fan. "Trying to decide what to do about tomorrow's show with Prez that was taped last week."

"Show will feel dated because we taped last week," she went on. "Not even a hint of Osama's demise. Still happy to have them on."

And in the end, as anyone who was glued to their TV yesterday to watch the episode (only 17 shows to go!) knows, she did indeed air the show as is. The only conceit to acknowledging the show's lack of the biggest news story of the day year is a crawl that occasionally popped up during the show, noting that it was "previously recorded."

The ill-timing clearly continued to irk Oprah throughout the day, however, as she continued to respond to comments about the episode.

When a fan told Oprah that she wished the talk queen could have had insight into the Osama bin Laden raid, she responded, "Me too. Taped last week. We knew breaking news could date us. Never expected bin Laden."

Well, she certainly wasn't alone in that assumption.

When another fan complimented her on managing to pack so much into the hour, she again showed her hand, responding, "Yea, too bad We taped BEFORE Bin Laden."

Still, topicality aside, Oprah seemed pleased with the way the interview went.

"I was a bit nervous," she wrote. "Could you tell?

"Don't get nervous much, but was overwhelmed w/ emotion to have Pres and First Lady here."

Hang on a second, Oprah actually gets nervous? OK, now that's a scoop. Almost, er, makes up for it. Right?