While speaking on a panel sponsored by my alma mater, Ted Turner he volunteered to cover the war in Baghdad for his old company (CNN), but was rebuffed:

"I'm 64, pretty much financially wiped out, and it would be a dramatic way to exit the world," Turner told an audience of media luminaries yesterday at a Newhouse School of Public Communications breakfast.

"But they said no, I 'wasn't qualified.' How qualified to you have to be? Holding the microphone and describing the world falling apart isn't a magical thing . . . 'I'm here in Baghdad . . . bombs are everywhere . . .' "

The best part was the New York Post's typically boisterous headline: TED TURNED DOWN AS BAGHDAD BAIT.