Ted Turner Echoes Howard Dean: Iraq "No Better Off" Than Under Saddam

Associated Press reports today that routinely wacky CNN founder Ted Turner lectured at Kansas State University and echoed Howard Dean's line as a presidential candidate: "Media mogul Ted Turner said Monday that Iraq is 'no better off' following the U.S.-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003."

Turner also said he thinks it's plausible that President Bush will launch a nuclear war:

He warned that a nuclear war could "kill everything on the planet" and said it could take place in an afternoon. Turner said he was afraid someone in power could make the mistake to launch a nuclear war, including President Bush, based on his previous decisions.

"You have to question ... the president on a lot of decisions he's made," Turner said. "He might just think launching those weapons would be a good thing to do. ... He thought Iraq was." Turner said war is an outdated form of diplomacy that has stopped working.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.

AP also impolitely mentioned Turner wasn't a tremendous draw: "The philanthropist and founder of CNN gave the lecture to a less-than-full auditorium. Earlier this fall, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a similar message of peace to a packed room as he marked 20 years of the reforms he championed." Gorbachev was elected "President" in 1985? Or was he appointed by the Politburo, hmm? And the "reforms he championed"? Would that include the butchering of Lithuanian separatists by his government's troops in 1991? The pro-Gorby template just never goes beneath the press-release hype.