9 October 2009 / AKŞAM ASLI AYDINTAŞBAŞ,
In an interview published in The Wall Street Journal, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan compared Aydın Doğan to famous gangster Al Capone, a comparison that has elicited a strong reaction.
And admittedly, it's not right to compare Doğan to a mafia leader who made his living by overseeing smuggling, illegal alcohol production and extortion. In this sense, the Doğan group is quite right in defending their boss. But at the same time, we all understand that actually Prime Minister Erdoğan was a victim of his own metaphor. For a long time now, Erdoğan has been uncomfortable with the Doğan group's repeated comparisons of him to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. I believe this is what lies behind Erdoğan's comparison of Aydın Doğan to Al Capone. But let us render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. The Putin metaphor is extremely exaggerated. Turkey is not Russia, and Erdoğan is not Putin.
