Posted on 06/19/2002 2:46:44 PM PDT by kattracks
Ted Turner, idiot-in-chief of AOL Time Warner, thinks it's so cute when he says something obnoxious and then takes it back the next day after the usual fuss. No doubt he says stupid things on purpose to get the media attention he so desperately craves. So here we go again ...
After his remarks Tuesday to a left-wing British newspaper about Israeli "terrorism," tempestuous Ted is eating even more crow than usual.
"I regret any implication that I believe the actions taken by Israel to protect its people are equal to terrorism," the notorious globalist and anti-religious bigot said in a statement repeated on his CNN by press-release reader Kyra Phillips. "I want to make it absolutely clear that my view was and is that there is a fundamental distinction between the acts of the Israeli government and the Palestinians.
"I believe the Israeli government has used excessive force to defend itself, but that is not the same as intentionally targeting and killing civilians with suicide bombers."
It didn't help that his initial comments came right before two Palestinian terrorists killed dozens of Israelis.
'Stupid'
As Israeli government spokesman Daniel Seaman noted Tuesday, "My only advice to Ted Turner is if people assume you are stupid, it is best to keep your mouth shut rather than open your mouth and confirm everyone in that view."
"His remarks are obscene and over the line," said Marvin Hier, director of Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
CNN, which just can't understand why its ratings have fallen, was frantically claiming that its founder's opinions were strictly his own. Cable news leader Fox News Channel, though, has had great fun noting that Turner still appeared to be calling the shots at CNN.
Fox's Brit Hume included video of Phillips reading the press release handed to her by her boss. "That just given to me by Ted Turner," she concluded.
The outspoken John Gibson noted in his opinion segment, "Why I'm Happy to Be at Fox," that "Turner got another flogging from the American media — including CNN, which had an anchor read the story and say that Turner's views weren't those of the network."
"Well ... almost immediately the anchor was back on the air reading from a piece of paper that had just been handed to her by Turner in the studio!!! ...
"Okay. Fine. Now we know more about what Ted thinks, as if we couldn't deduce what he thinks from the way his network covers things. But the curious thing about all of this for me — as someone who sits before a camera talking about and reporting on the news — is the thought of the network founder standing off camera holding a piece of paper and saying, 'You there. Read this on the air.'"
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bill Gates, Ted Turner and George Soros to Create Mega $$ 'Vast Left Wing Conspiracy' Think Tank
Why does anyone pay attention to this icehole anyways?....oh yeah...I forgot...he has a lot of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
My mistake.
FMCDH
LET'S stop pussyfooting around about Ted Turner, calling him "loopy" and tagging him "the mouth from the South." That just makes him sound like some relatively harmless blowhard when, in fact, he is a dyed-in-the-wool and very dangerous hater of the Jews.
Turner's latest outburst calling Israel a terrorist state (see Eric Fettmann's fine op-ed column in yesterday's Post) is just the latest slur the media billionaire and patron of the anti-Jewish United Nations has cast.
I witnessed his anti-Semitism three decades ago in Newport, R.I., while covering America's Cup campaigns for months at a time. Turner was a total embarrassment to the yachting establishment (itself a pretty prejudiced lot at the time) with his crude anti-Jewish "jokes." They often had to drag him out of post-race press conferences for fear of what he might say.
Then, though, he was just another rich redneck yachtie whose opinions didn't count for a damn in the world at large. But since then, he has become the power behind CNN and has been rehabilitated at AOL Time Warner as a vice chairman of the world's biggest media group (even if it's going down the tubes).
I've been delving into Turner's past to see where his vicious bigotry came from and may have the answer. It could all stem back to his childhood in Savannah, Ga., then and now a gracious and liberal southern city.
Legend has it that when Turner was a boy, his father, Robert Edward Turner, had an affair with the very beautiful wife of a Jewish doctor who was a close neighbor. (The young Turner may even have caught them in the sack together in an apartment over the family's garage - memories differ on this detail.)
Anyway, the doctor's wife ended up dead when her car stalled on the railroad tracks, Turner Sr. went on to divorce Ted's mother, remarried and eventually shot himself to death in 1963 in a fit of manic-depression when his son was 24.
Armchair psychologists in Savannah still surmise that the childhood trauma of catching his father with the doctor's wife caused him to blame the Jews for everything that happened afterward. Maybe.
But as the wisest man on radio, Don Imus, said of Turner the other morning, "He's now popping more pills than even I am," and that's something to worry about. This heavily sedated hate-monger these days has a real platform from which to spout his bigotry - and a world audience. If I were AOL Time Warner, I'd be much more worried about having Ted Turner in my tent than about anything that's happening to my stock price. link.
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