Ted Turner: Our Favorite A**hole

Friends, “The Mouth of the South” has left us.

According to the New York Times, Robert Edward “Ted” Turner III died Wednesday, May 6th, at his home near Tallahassee, Florida, after a long battle with Lewy body dementia. He was 87.

Turner, who is most famous for founding CNN in 1980, was a man who had a penchant for taking risks and not being afraid to speak his mind, consequences be damned.

Former CNN Chief Operating officer Steve Korn described Turner as “the most vibrant man I’ve ever known”1 and that “people would often lose that because of his audacious personality”2

In a statement from Turner Enterprises, Turner was hailed as “a man known for his no-holds-barred delivery, endearing sense of humor, and undying loyalty to those around him.”3

Turner’s third and final ex-wife Jane Fonda eulogized him as “a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate” and “the world's greatest sailor” who “had a big life, a brilliant mind and a soaring sense of humor.”4

The United Nations Foundation, which Turner helped create with a 1 billion dollar personal donation (US$1,000,000,000.00) in 1997, stated that he was “a visionary with an impatience for change” and “believed that progress was always in reach and everyone had a role to play in bringing it about”.5

Also known as “Captain Outrageous”, Turner was by all accounts a philanderer, a man whose “no-holds barred delivery” tended to turn off some folks, and in our humble opinion, he didn’t give a rat’s butt about what others thought about him or the things he did.

Politically, he was “contradictory and controversial”. He had been a supporter of the far-right John Birch Society (ironic as he would later found the UN Foundation), yet “befriended” Cuba’s Fidel Castro and “defended the repressive conduct of the Communist Chinese government”. In later years, he would devote himself to causes including the environment, fighting AIDS, and global peace.6

All in all, Ted Turner was Ted Turner! From all you read about him, you could easily conclude that he was an a**hole, and we would wholeheartedly agree. However, he was no ordinary a**hole. He was the a**hole who was never afraid to take chances regardless of what others thought. In the end, this a**hole revolutionized the world by giving us round-the-clock news through CNN, owned millions of acres of land and preserved it for generations to come, and was a champion for peace and understanding. Ted Turner, you were the most glorious a**hole that ever walked the face of the earth, my friend!

Our condolences go out to Turner’s family and friends.

Thank you, Ted (he always just wanted to be called “Ted”)7, for using your fame and fortune to help make the world a better place. For that, you will forever be known as…

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and/or listening, don’t be an a**hole (unless you are Ted Turner, and there was only one Ted Turner) and until we meet again…

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