Ted Turner Back in the News

As if his Cable News Network (CNN) weren't enough, every now and then media mogul Ted Turner feels the need to grace us all with his presence and his ultra-leftwing outlook. Yesterday was one of those extra special occasions when Mr. Turner let his liberal light shine, this time over the hallowed halls of education in Manhattan. (Kansas, that is.)

Speaking as a guest lecturer at Kansas State University on Monday, Turner announced to a "less-than-full auditorium" that Iraq is "no better off" today than it was under Saddam Hussein's reign.

Never mind the fact that Iraqi citizens have now completed two nationwide free elections -- neither of which were predicted (by the American and European media) to be successful – and are readying themselves for a third historic election to put in place their first democratically elected government body. Never mind the fact that the new Iraqi constitution has been ratified by the citizens in overwhelming consent. Never mind the fact that women are being allowed to participate in society, including business, education and politics, for the first time in years. Never mind the fact that Iraqi citizens no longer have to fear for their lives (or those of their families) for simply speaking out against the government or its policies.

Of course, being the multifaceted guy that he is, Turner did not dwell on America's sins in Iraq for the entire lecture. He saved plenty of time to touch on other subjects like global overpopulation, poverty, and nuclear disarmament.

"You have to question ... the president on a lot of decisions he's made," Turner said. "He might just think launching [nuclear] weapons would be a good thing to do. ... He thought Iraq was."

Turner also showed his media-minded surfeit of knowledge of international matters when he turned to the subject of diplomacy:

Turner said war is an outdated form of diplomacy that has stopped working.

"You would think that we would have learned that in Vietnam," he said.

Funny, but my public school education left me with the understanding that war was more often the result of a failure of diplomacy. And the lesson we should have learned from the Vietnam War is to never let a military action be driven or guided by the media or a gaggle of politicians, who tend to concentrate on nothing more than their own reelection.

Whether or not the Bush administration and Republican-led Congress have successfully learned this lesson is becoming less and less obvious as the year moves on.