It is quite a spectacle to see a man’s ego and sense of self-worth
outgrow his own country, or I guess I should say, the
country in which he was born (not necessarily his country). Upon hearing two paragraphs
from a recent speech, it became plainly clear that is exactly what
has happened to media mogul and all-around person extraordinaire
Ted Turner.
Quite clearly he has achieved deity status (in
his own mind), expressing disdain for media organization who
belittle themselves and tarnish their reputation for fairness by
refusing to disassociate their news reporting from the audience they
serve, and taking sides on undecided wars.
It is most certainly
within Mr. Turner’s prerogative to take such a view, and his
great wealth affords him many opportunities of citizenship-jumping
that most of us do not have. Nevertheless some of the great
hypocrisies and contradictions within his life are worth
mentioning.
It would be very hard to find anyone who has more
greatly benefited from the great American experiment of a
capitalistic democracy than Mr. Turner who is a true rags-to-riches
story of a self-made man who hit it big by following his passions.
His life is representative of the great celebration that American
freedom has come to represent.
In a large way, that is what makes the following statement by
Mr. Turner so hard to fathom.
In the q & a portion of a
speech at the National Press Club, Mr. Turner had this to say
regarding George W. Bush’s rhetorical ultimatum about the war on
terror:
"...there
are a lot of things about this war that disturb me, and one of them
is, uh, one of them is the attitude that, you know, that was
well-expressed by our president. He said it very clearly, he said
"Either you’re with us, or you’re against us."And, I had a problem
with that because I really hadn’t made my mind up yet. You know,
what if you haven’t made your mind up. You know, what if you’re
thinking about it, doing some studying, doing some reading.
"
Earlier in the speech, regarding the press having
American Flags shown during their coverage of war:
"I
mean, I just really wonder that during the, during the last war, you
know, what business did it have in the news sets to have the
American flag flying in the background. I mean, it was like the news
media covered the Iraq war, at least at the beginning of it, almost
as like it was a football game with us versus them. And I can
understand that for the U.S. based media, uh, to, to, to do that.
But, I really, and certainly it was inappropriate for CNN to do it
that way."
My best hope is that Mr. Turner’s is trying to say that
reporting on terrorists in an objective way will make the evil of
the terrorists so imminently self-evident since its number one tool
for bringing about change is the most horrible and visible murder of
definitively innocent victims.
But maybe Ted Turner is
alluding to the possibility that we don’t know all the facts.
Perhaps in time, it is possible that we’ll see that Bin Laden and
Saddam were on the right side of history and the United States, led
by George W. Bush, was wrong. The foreign fighters who behead
innocent people and the insurgents who mass murder civilians from
the wrong bloodline are entirely justified. It is silly and small of
us not to at least consider such possibilities and wrong for
reporters to assume otherwise.
I think Mr. Turner would
certainly have more credibility had he been a more outspoken critic
of his own favorite media organization’s Eason Jordan, who knowingly
suppressed stories of horrible and personal atrocities waged by
Saddam Hussein in order to remain "friendly" with that government.
These recent statements are actually the culmination of a
long line of ridiculous thoughts of a rich man who is more and more
out of touch with the humble beginnings from which he came. The
greatest consequence of a successful American dream appears to be
the capacity and inclination for successful people to overlook our
nation’s success story in lieu of their own. Despite all his obvious
greatness, could you imagine how Ted Turner might have fared had he
been born in Bin Laden’s Afganistan? Saddam’s Iraq? Kim Jong Il’s
Korea? And with that, is the any question as to what side of the
terror war that Mr. Turner should be on.
Maybe Ted Turner
isn’t so bad. Maybe he is just a
little slow.
