Ted Turner, the vice chairman of Time-Warner and founder of CNN, gave a speech last week in Washington to the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, in which he displayed the qualities that took him to the top of American journalism.
First, there is his grasp of the nuances of history: It was an "insult," Turner said, for Ronald Reagan to have called the Soviet Union an evil empire. Then, there is his charm and wit: Asked about Tom DeLay, the number three House Republican, Turner explained, "Nobody that dumb could make it through law school." Finally, there is his exquisite sensitivity. Commenting on Pope John Paul II's opposition to artificial contraception, Turner told an ethnic joke: "Ever seen a Polish mine detector?" he asked, tapping his foot. What a guy.
The speech caused Turner some embarrassment, as well it should have. Presidential contender Gary Bauer, the Catholic League, and a few opponents of "raw anti-Catholic bigotry," to use Bauer's phrase, shamed Turner into issuing a statement of regret and "heartfelt apologies" for the insult to the pope. The mainstream press, though, mostly ignored Turner's fulminations -- something that would not, we suspect, be the case if a rightwing billionaire had mocked various liberal icons.
THE SCRAPBOOK, for its part, feels sorriest for Turner's children, who probably care more about the good opinion of Jane Fonda's billionaire boy-toy than does the pope. Now that he's on the population-control bandwagon, Turner can't stop expressing chagrin at being a father. As he put it last week, he had "five kids -- boom, boom, boom -- by the time I was 30." In a similar speech last fall, he expressed this tender sentiment: "If I was doing it over again I wouldn't have done it, but I can't shoot them now that they're here." What a dad.