Lib Blogger Pulls a Ted Turner, Mocks Ash Wednesday

Liberal blogger and Media Matters employee* Oliver Willis channeled his inner Ted Turner last Wednesday, while writing for his eponymous Web site.

You see Willis took to his keyboard at 5:20 p.m. on February 25, Ash Wednesday, to hack out this 41-word snark about the liturgical ritual (h/t Damian G.):

As I write this, millions of people around the world have a charcoal cross scratched across their foreheads, and everybody who doesn’t have one on will walk past these people and act as if everything is normal.

Religion, you are weird.

Of course by extension that marks Vice President Joe Biden as "weird," something that conservatives can agree with, but for different, non-sacrilegious reasons.

At least Willis refrained from calling Catholics "Jesus freaks."

From Brent Baker's March 7, 2001 MRC CyberAlert:

Ted Turner insulted attendees at Bernard Shaw’s retirement party, asking those on Ash Wednesday with a smudge on their foreheads if they were "a bunch of Jesus freaks," FNC’s Brit Hume reported Tuesday night.

Hume revealed during his "Grapevine" segment on Special Report with Brit Hume:

CNN founder Ted Turner, in town last week for a retirement party for anchor Bernard Shaw, left the staff stunned after meeting with them at the network’s Washington bureau. It was Ash Wednesday and a number of those present still had a smudge on their forehead. ‘What are you?’ asked Turner, ‘a bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox.’ Turner, it may be remembered, stirred controversy a decade ago when he said Christianity is, quote, ‘for losers.’ He apologized for that, but as recently as last August criticized Christianity for being, quote, ‘very intolerant.’

Sounds like he’s the intolerant one.

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*Willis issues a disclaimer on his blog:

The views on this site are mine and mine alone, they do not reflect the views of my employer, Media Matters for America

Photo of Biden by Getty Images