D8 Video: Steve Case’s Secret Plan to Buy Apple and Have Steve Jobs Run AOL-Time Warner

Here’s a fun alternative history exercise: What would have happened if AOL-Time Warner had bought Apple (AAPL) and put Steve Jobs in charge of the giant mess?

I can’t imagine that Jobs would have ever gone for it. And it doesn’t seem to have gotten past the spitballing stage. But former AOL CEO Steve Case says he did indeed float the idea to his board back in 2002.

He explained the logic to Kara Swisher onstage at D8. Putting AOL (AOL) and Time Warner (TWX) together wasn’t a terrible idea, he insists–they simply never had the management team to make it work.

But add Jobs, plus a hardware company to marry content and Internet businesses, and…well, it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. But fun to fantasize about.