TED TURNER is still a moron. In the event there was any doubt about this proposition, Turner generously offered more evidence in an interview published yesterday in the Guardian. The offending passage: “Aren’t the Israelis and the Palestinians both terrorising each other? The Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that’s all they have. The Israelis . . . they’ve got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism.”
The outrage came quickly. The Israeli government called him “stupid.” Tom DeLay ripped Turner, saying his “twisted attempt to justify terrorism against Israel by establishing moral equivalence descends to new depths.” Even CNN, the network Turner founded, hastily issued a statement pointing out that he “has no operational or editorial oversight of CNN,” and that his “views are his own and they definitely do not reflect the views of CNN in any way.”
Blah, blah, blah. Reports of Turner’s idiocy have become so frequent that they’re arguably not even newsworthy, in a man-bites-dog sense. They’re tiresome, really. Like shark-attack stories. Or Darryl-Strawberry-arrest stories.
In fact, in the very same interview in which he made the Israelis-as-terrorist claims, Turner tried to explain away his most recent faux pas, a February speech in which he praised the September 11 hijackers as “brave,” although maybe a “little nuts.”
Turner told the paper that he had “made an unfortunate choice of words,” and speculated that he might have picked that one because he owns the Atlanta Braves. “Look, I’m a very good thinker, but I sometimes grab the wrong word . . . I mean, I don’t type my speeches, then sit up there and read them off the teleprompter, you know. I wing it.”
But that comment was more than just a poor word choice. After labeling the terrorists “brave,” Turner asked the audience for a show of hands–how many among you would commit suicide for your country? No hands. Point made. Turner may now, after an outpouring of criticism, wish that he hadn’t called the hijackers “brave.” (Even for those foolish enough accept the argument that it’s somehow courageous to commit suicide, Turner’s argument doesn’t wash: Osama bin Laden revealed two months earlier, on his infamous videotaped confession, that most of the hijackers had no idea they were sent to die.) But Turner did say it, and at the time, he meant it.
So now Ted Turner wants to explain away his comments to the Guardian. No sooner had they been published than Turner offered a statement of “clarification.”
It reads, in part: “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.” The statement also said Turner regretted “any implication that I believe the actions taken by Israel to protect its people are equal to terrorism.”
Implication? Forget implication. Turner was very clear about what he meant: He thinks the Israeli government is involved in terrorism. Indeed, he repeated that point twice. He was not only clear, but emphatic.
It’s apparent that Turner does believe that the September 11 hijackers were “brave” and that he does believe the Israeli government is guilty of terrorism. And others–Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said–share his views.
But say this for those other very public morons: At least they have the courage of their convictions. All of the well-deserved grief they’ve gotten has done nothing to change their warped minds.
If only Ted Turner were so brave.
Stephen F. Hayes is staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
