CNN founder Ted Turner, who thinks Christianity is a "religion for losers," apparently believes that the Gulf oil spill could actually be God sending us a message that drilling for oil is bad. Will media liberals read him the riot act as they have Sarah Palin for making similar claims?
"I'm just wondering if God's telling us he doesn't want us to drill offshore," Turner told a CNN interviewer. Recent coal mine disasters, Turner said, may also be signs that "the Lord's tired of having the mountains of West Virginia -- the tops knocked of of 'em so they can get more coal. Maybe we ought to just leave the coal in the ground and just use solar and wind power."
So far the legacy media have been completely silent on Turner's claims (shown in a video below the fold), in stark contrast to Sarah Palin's statement that the construction of an Alaska natural gas pipeline was God's will.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd mockingly wrote, "When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?"
"If god prefers Sarah Palin's specific Alaskan pipeline idea," MSNBC's Rachel Maddow asked, "why hasn't construction started? You think that god could just like zip, zip, you know."
"Like the Governor, I now also believe that my will is perfectly aligned with God's will," wrote Singer/Songwriter Roseanne Cash sarcastically in a Nation op/ed headlined "Why I'd Be a Better VP than Sarah Palin."
"When Governor Palin said that it was God's will for the Alaska pipeline to be built and asked for people to pray for that to happen," Cash added, "I was really inspired by her confidence in the absolute, seamless integration of her will and God's will."
Numerous others in the media used Palin's statement to question whether she could keep her religious beliefs and her political preferences and actions separate. Yet Turner's statement has not undergone such scrutiny.
Palin's statement, said Anderson Cooper, "got a lot of people wondering about Palin's church and the role of religion in her political decision-making." Apparently Cooper does not believe his boss's statement merits the same attention or skepticism.
Palin was dogged for her statement since it fit the media narrative of a right-wing "jesus freak," to use Turner's characterization of Christians. But Turner, openly hostile towards Christianity, is getting a pass for making a strikingly similar statement.
