Cronkite’s offensive history
Diana West tells you the way it really was.
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I guess us losers don’t get to write the history. Rats.
I’m sorry but I don’t see the point of this thread. The man is dead and cannot defend himself. I feel it’s tacky and in poor taste…but that’s just me. We have enough to inflame us in the here and now we don’t need to borrow from past years.
Cronkite is adored by the MSM because he showed the way to making the lines between opinion and news very dim.
Today, most MSM news is editorializing and opinion. Much news goes unreported.
Because I don’t want to sink to the level of the average HuffPo commenter, I’m keeping my thoughts about Cronkite to myself.
Hey Chap! This was one of the lies I was referring to when I said “even though Uncle Walter lied to me all those years”. It was a doozy!
Not a particularly illuminating column that you linked to. It didn’t say anything that hasn’t been said many times before.
What exactly is in poor taste?
Ah, but, as I read it, one of the main points of Ms. West’s article is that this point in 1968 gave a huge push to the decline and weakening of our nation/society/culture – sort of one of the main reasons we have so much that inflames us in the here and now.
Lied? The second sentence of his commentary was:
It is easy to criticize someone for getting it wrong (even when they admit they don’t know) when the dust had not even settled.
By the way, the first line from the famous “stalemate” broadcast was:
I recall hearing that Cronkite did not want to do the piece, but was forced to by CBS’s higher ups. But he insisted he made it clear that he was making a departure from reporting and instead commenting. If only today’s reporters were as forthcoming.
The man is being lionized as some great American hero and he’s not. He was a hard core leftist dedicated to the destruction of American sovereignty and it needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Praise for a traitor shouldn’t go unchallenged.
Cronkite is the Americanized version of the German word “Krankheit”, which means illness. Somehow I always thought the last name was fitting for this newscaster.
No joke, my last name comes from a derivation of the German word for adverse or unfavorable.
Mock away.
granite – the man is dead and cannot defend any critism of him now. How much clearer can I be? That alone is my point but by all means, I also believe you and anyone else are certainly free to disagree with me.
The decline was due to people’s acceptance of what was being pushed, not that it was being pushed. Kinda like today.
I remember reading about Walter Cronkite in National Review (back when the National Review was worth reading).
He and William F. Buckley were good sailing buddies, and would stay up all night in the cockpit drinking and arguing politics. Buckley himself stated that Cronkite was so much more left-leaning than CBS would have the world believe.
So is that not a testament to the fact he was able to report objectively?
And interestingly, didn’t Buckley something very similar in 2006 with Iraq?
Now compare the coverage here of his death with this post.
Interesting difference, no?
He also never adjusted his stance even after it was known, and he never correct his brethren (who followed his lead)when they actually stated the US lost the tet Offensive. Lies by omission.
LBJ was the liberal in charge looking, praying for an excuse to..give up.
Cronkite was the liberal collaborator in between the 40 year run of dominate liberalism and the center right voters who before alternate news continued to vote for people who did not represent them or their principles and values while our progressive government sold us down the river, instituted far left academics, defeated us in Vietnam, are responsible for millions of deaths and trashed our Constitution, over and over with no accountability and they’re set to give us another forty years in the wilderness with help from the herd of cow bell, nose ring liberal enabler media collaborators educated by Cronkite’s precedent.
All is going well, but not for America.
His stance that he did not know who won? Setting aside the fact that “won” is a subjective term (in terms of casualties they lost more, but it did prove they were capable of a large scale coordinated attack), it was an opinion he was essentially forced to give while the war was still going on. He made clear IT WAS HIS SUBJECTIVE OPINION.
On July 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm, chapoutier said:
No.
Buckley believed that Iraq needs its own Washington and Jefferson and Madison. Once Saddam was arrested, we should have cleared out. And that is precisely what my opinion is.
The last few years of his life, the aged Buckley’s libertarian views, and idolization of Ayn Rand, were less and less encumbered by his earlier conservative leanings. There are certain areas in political thought where Conservatism and Libertarianism can walk arm-in-arm. The split in the two occurs at the societal level.
Maybe a little explaination?
According to popular opinion here, if you don’t support the mission, you don’t support the troops. Why do you hate our troops? Why did Buckley?
That CBS couched as news!
Who’s opinion? I think if you polled most of the true conservatives here with a proper polling question, that they would disagree with the nation building taking place in Iraq.
Huh? He said right at the beginning:
You can’t get any clearer than that. If you wan to blame CBS for making him do it during the regular news hour, feel free, but Cronkite hardly seems the appropriate target of your ire.
Rogue, Last explanation I’ll give on this because I’m not one to argue.
If the subject of this thread was started prior to Walter Cronkite’s death, I would have been all over it. If after his death we wanted to make the subject the “evil push” of liberalism in America today and how it started, I’d be all over it. Maybe I learned a lesson regarding MJ or maybe I’m just a hypocrite, but By all means, carry on. Cronkite’s just rewards, cause and effect, etc. will be his and his alone and beyond any control of any of us today.
We are not nation building. We are fighting terror over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. And anyone who thought we should withdraw from Iraq post Saddam, once the decision was made to stay, was called very very bad names here. I don’t see how you can deny that.
I grew up watching Cronkite on the news … I was in Nam for both Tet offensives (68 & 69) and like others who were there know full well who “lost” …
Cronkite’s “opinion” was treated as “fact” because of his reputation. It was used by all the anti-war groups to show we should get out of Nam …
I never watched him again after that …
Chap, seriously, you don’t have to live up to your name.
Sounds like you should be angry at the poor saps that blindly believed him, then. He did his best to present it as intended.
Personally, my support of BVSH II died after Saddam Hussein was captured. We should have immediately:
1.) Appointed a senior U.S. General as Governor-general of Iraq.
2.) Found a senior Iraqi Army officer willing to take over the country, that would promise a constitution and free-elections within 2 years.
3.) Created a free-nation for the Kurds and for the Shia. Sunni Iraq would be approximately 2/3 its present size, and the rest would be Kurdistan to the north, and the south-east would be a Shiite nation that would probably annexed by Iran, which is where the next fight will be anyway.
4.) Promised to come back and kick okole in two years if Iraq did not behave.
Within 120 days, we should have been out of Iraq.
I am sorry, I’m not trying to argue, it is just that some subjects do not get revisited at a more convenient time. It usually happens when a principal dies or is involved in some other sensation. Is it because you deem it goulish to discuss history of someone recently deceased? I can understand if Wacko Jacko has diminished your enthusiasm for such discourse.
I grew up during the Viet Nam war. My thoughts and prayers, even though I was young, were always with our soldiers there. The war depressed me and it may sound trite, but I had the utmost respect and concern for everyone who served in that hell hole. They are heros!
On July 24th, 2009 at 1:11 pm, chapoutier said:
Who’s denying it? Call me names all day long.
My Father fought in the Tet Offensive. The NVA and the Vietcong got their butts kicked. Had we kept up the pressure we would have won the war.
Not a problem Rogue.
Chap … some of both actually … his “disclaimer” was not picked up on by most and they only heard the rest of his “opinion” taking it as hard news not personal viewpoints … the fact that he never saw fit to revisit and correct that mistaken impression he had left people with and clarify that it was his personal “opinion” and not a factual “news report” was disappointing to say the least …
As for those who “blindly believed him” I totally agree … between the “flower children” culture and the beginnings of the loss of credibility of the American Media things went down hill …
I am not putting him down as a human being nor am I belittling his many accomplishments but I would like to see the record on this particular piece of history set straight …
As with Michael Jackson’s death I see no reason to discuss Walter Cronkite. His views were are no irrelevant.
I do know he was a superb and extremely brave correspondent in WWII. That is the legacy I wish his peers would remember and try to emulate.
I think this NY Post article caught the essence of Cronkite.
He was a self-absorbed limousine leftist:
I hate pranksters, especially old ones. TV producer Don Hewitt tells us how Cronkite got his kicks:
Sorry, that’s just the way it was.
I generally adhere to “de mortuis nil nisi bonum”.
But, we’re living in perilous times.
And, as long as it is the effects and consequences of the deceased’s political leanings that are being discussed and illustrated; and as long as the deceased is not being personally attacked, I really do not feel I can afford to have a problem with this thread, given the (to repeat) perilous times in which we are currently living.
We used to call him “Walter Comrade.”
I think the point is not Cronkite, but the press. Should a rational person be shown nothing but one sided information, their conclusions will be one sided, especially if that person believed that they had been shown ALL sides of an issue.
Today’s press is a result of THAT type of reporting. I’m not blaming Walter for coming to the conclusion that “the war is lost” in Vietnam, but his “opinion” should have been based on complete information. It should not have been aired as “fact.” Losing a battle does not make a war lost.
Modern liberal journalism is based on the presentation of one sided opinion, and spin…not fact, and total disclosure.
Granite – I mourn for this man, I mourn for the state of man and I mourn for the loss of our country.
I am sad.
Huh?
A talking head had the power to make a President retreat from a policy? I suppose it was a different era. In any event, Diana West’s assertion gives the talking head(s) far too much credit, and seriously diminishes the office of President.
What Pres Johnson had to do was to get out in front and explain the reasons and justifications for what we we were doing in Viet Nam. Well, it turns out the population asked questions.
Why wasn’t it Cassius Clay who asked why should he go half way around the world to defend someone else’s freedom, when he could not get it at home?
Nope. It was not Tet. It was not Cronkite. It was the fallacy of the logic that brought us there in the first place, and then, that kept us there, that could no longer be defended.
Anyone alive and beyond a certain age remembers how revered he was, and how what he said was taken as “fact” no matter what disclaimer he may have used.
That is hardly his fault, or his problem, frankly, when he made it abundantly clear what he meant it to be taken as.
Walter did not make the ‘stalemate’ broadcast without the approval of CBS producers and management. It is over-simplification to just criticize one man – CBS should be included as well.
What hasn’t been made much of was Cronkite’s role in covering up the Kennedy assassinations.
-He promoted the ‘magic bullet’ theory in a special program on the Warren Report
-He never mentioned how more bullets were recovered in Los Angeles than were fired from Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan’s gun, or the LA Coroner’s report that stated that the bullet that killed Robert Kennedy was fired at close range from behind the Senator – someplace the convicted assassin never got close to.
Whatever your feelings about Cronkite, classy bloggers do not speak evil of the (recently) dead.
I blame the French.
When the Korean Armistice was signed in July 1953, a reporter visited then retired General Douglas MacArthur at his home and asked him what he thought of agreemet we had just reached with China and North Korea.
MacArthur’s thought for a moment and then said, “We have just signed Indochina’s death warrant.”
It is easy to see how “Uncle Walter” felt about America. Read his introduction to the book “First Into Nagasaki” to get a first-hand account of his anti-American views…
“Uncle Walter” was a hard-core leftist. He hid the fact longer and better than the rest but he was a leftist and had little love for the things that made this country great.
He was prophetic. I just hope that prophecy does not extend to us someday.
When I mentioned the French, I meant they’re usual request for assistance, put us in there. Your historical perspective was much better.
Yeah, I’m glad you witnessed Johnson’s method of formulating policy in the Oval Office. Those three TVs and wire service tickers meant nothing to him.
And this coming from a Kapo who defended the worse type of insults directed towards a sitting POTUS, then complained that we should now respect #44 and not treat him with same level victrol that Bush 43 put up with.
So good Kapo put on some make-up, pumps and a wedding dress and have a namblaesque weekend.
I suspect a little tongue in cheek in your comment.
Going into Viet Nam after the French had it handed to them at Dien Bien Phu was a seminal moment and contributed to our going into Viet Nam. That being said, there were other things in the air that contributed to our involvement in Viet Nam.
Won’t say fear mongering, however the communist menace boogey-man anti-capitalist was used repeatedly as a truncheon to advance specific policies and agendas. At the time is was used in Central America, Indo-China and Iran. And, later in South America and South Africa. Not suggesting any right, or wrong. There were lots of moving pieces in each case, some understood and some mis-understood.
Hindsight is 20/20. And, I refuse to be cast as taking any single individual to task. There were concerns real and imagined.
OK. I am sensing that I am going off in a tangent. Bottomline, read Stanley Karnow’s “Viet Nam, a History” to more fully understand what it was all about, how and why we were there, in Viet Nam. 700 pages and I read it in one weekend. I couldn’t put it down.
It wasn’t just the French, it was a complicated confluence of events, history and attitudes.
Why aren’t you people in Iran right now – whining about Obama or whatever stupid things you whine about?
I see another brood of peckergnats are on the wing. Must be all the rain we’ve been having.
Ummm, OK.
So, it was not Conkite’s statements on the Tet offensive as much as it was Pres Jonhson’s craven insecurity that allowed him to be manipulated from his policy.
It is a good thing that Pres Johnson did not run for re-election. I do (did) not want a President who is a lap dog to the press, who is intimidated by them, or who is afraid to answer their very simple questions, like what do they read.
Because, ILMC, we wouldn’t get to read your enlightening posts.
About Cronkite, [redacted].
Chapoutier – I would like to know how much in American dollars that meal at Claridge cost you.
I like that Ramsay show too.
How much did it cost and what did you have?
Thank you.
Correction. Johnson’s Great Society was #2. FDR’s New Deal was the first. You’d think the crash and burn history of US socialism would make democruds in Washington go hmmmm. No such luck.
The MSM has been ignoring Cronkite’s stridently antiIsrael views. Cronkite was antiIsrael even before it was fashionable. In one infamous CBS radio commentary he made in the 1980s, Cronkite thundered that “Israel must choose land or peace” and then went on to say that the Arabs all offered Israel peace but Israel preferred to hold onto to land that Cronkite believed Israel won through aggression. Cronkite ignored the fact that in 1967, there was no “occupied territory” yet the Arab states launched a war to extinguish Israel. Nor would Cronkite concede that the “occupied territory” was won in a defensive war. At the end of Cronkite’s editorial, his voice quavered with antiIsrael rage. As for the Arab states’ generous offer to Israel, Cronkite had no evidence of anything. But because Cronkite was the absolute favorite of the liberal media, no criticism of this pompous newscaster is allowed. And I would venture that CBS has discarded the tape of Cronkite’s antiIsrael rant.
The truth needs no adorers or detractors
The truth about the Cronkite behind the scenes and how he helped usher in liberalism should be explored
Note we had two moderately priced bottles of wine…one could certainly eat there cheaper.
About $450, including tip for my wife and I.
I had a fois gras starter, some sort of duck for main and a cheese course for dessert.
Don’t recall what the wife had.
Chapoutier – Thank you for telling me that information.
About $450, including tip for my wife and I.
I had a fois gras starter, some sort of duck for main and a cheese course for dessert.
Don’t recall what the wife had.
Strap on a pair and explain which concerns were imagined.
Marc said (#61):
History proved him right. Their land grab has made them less safe.
The point of this treat is answering Big Media’s Deification of “Saint Walter the Most Trusted Man in America”. When all we had was the Big 3 in Network news I guess Saint Walter the Divine was as big as any.
Still many of us then knew he was a leftist jerk.
He earned my everlasting hatered at the 1968 Democratic Convention Chicago-his Left wing bias came through big time.
And as for some of the BS on this thread–if every last Jew in Israel were to march into the sea today there would be no peace. The Koran forbids it and Hamas, Hizbollah and the PLA will find new enemies- they always do.
Yes, he almost single-handedly turned Tet victory into a defeat in his own mind.
What land grab is that? The one that occurred while they repelled attacks?
And Hamas is now enjoying American tax dollars.
Walter Cronkite = Walter Duranty.
No difference.
This is utter nonsense, or else you are simply ignorant of ANYTHING WHATSOEVER that has EVER occurred in the Middle East. This statement is so misconceived and idiotic, that I’m shocked by it.
Israel has throughout their history been “unsafe” due solely to the fact that the Arab Muslim population in the region want to destroy it. They are a nation of roughly 6 million people (mostly Jews, but there are ALSO Israeli citizens of other cultural extractions–bet THAT’S a shock to you), who are surrounded with hundreds of millions of people who have been indoctrinated (for political and religious reasons)to believe that Israel is a nation of pigs and rats, and that they must be annihilated.
Their own existence fuels it. “Giving land for peace” is simply a slogan. It has no basis in fact whatsoever. Leftists like Jimmy Carter and Cronkite do not care whether Israel achieves peace, regardless of how it is achieved.
And regarding your idiotic “land grab” comment, the 1967 six day war was necessary in order to thwart an impending attack upon them by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. They were outnumbered roughly 2-to-1. Had they not attacked first, they probably would have been wiped out. The result of the war removed Jordan as a belligerent, took the strategic Golan Heights from Syria, and strengthened their overall situation in the region–had they maintained it. “Negotiations” with regard to “giving land” to their enemies have weakened them considerably.
So lgm, what are you batting here? Is it still 0.000?
What “evil” is that? You can’t speak the TRUTH about the guy? Is the truth about Cronkite “evil?”
Do you ever actually THINK through what you are saying before you say it?
lgm, being your typical opportunistic, hateful self? It’s amagzing that even using something as dissasociative as an internet blog, your purely self serving agenda is apparent for all to see. You are the one who lacks class. But I’m sure you already know that.
Chap said:
You’re last name is Schitz?
Stick to math…you’ve just proved you flunk out at history.
Lame.
But I didn’t really expect you to back up that claim.
What country would that be?
I agree with you about not criticizing someone after their dead…but we’re in the minority–and I don’t mean on this thread. Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, etc., etc., etc. have had their bones picked clean and then pulverized. Considering their respective accomplishments, I can’t get worked up over WC getting criticized. But I have to admit I never understood WHY he was revered the way he was.
I was only 8, but I thought WC took off his glasses, hung his head, and said the war was lost. I must have remembered that wrong.
Your debating skills have improved.
I thought the same thing. What about their country do they “love?” The only thing that a liberal cares about is their political association and its continued control over everyone within our borders. Liberals hate everything to do with America. They despise American citizenship, preferring to give over everything to non-citizens who will support their political agenda.
Did I say you hate this country? DAMN RIGHT I DID! You hate America. You support Obama’s plans to “fundamentally change” it into something that it never was. You hate decency and societal standards. You hate an informed public. You want people in America to be dumb and needy. You and your kind are a cancer and a blight upon America.