Oh, you mean like when he lied to the American people about the results of the Tet offensive in Vietnam? Thereby forcing the first modern American military defeat via public opinion?*

Look, Cronkite he was a journalistic _hero_ up to and during WWII (ala Murrow). But after that, he turned way, wacky, Carter-like left. The country - if not the world - was poorer for it.

(This has parallels with Michael Jackson: celebrate what the man did in his prime, but realize that afterwords he was a shadow of his former self - if not another person almost unrecognizable from the former altogether)

*this viewpoint is historically and factually correct, however it is not politically correct. if you're public educated, this will sound like heresy.

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wow, way to inject your misguided political and historical beliefs into this. it's fascinating how respected and trusted men in the mainstream of american life like cronkite have become demonized by the fringe for disagreeing with their fringe beliefs.

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homunculus: "wow, way to inject your misguided political and historical beliefs into this"

Remember the footage of those south vietnamese people flooding our abandoned embassy and clamoring for the ladders of the last leaving American choppers? Trying to hand their babies over to GIs and begging for them to be taken, anywhere but there?

For those people who weren't lined up and executed immediately afterwards, I'd be willing to bet they don't see my previous post as misguided political or historical "beliefs", for them it was real life.

I doubt any of those survivors are mourning the loss of Mr. "The VIetnam war is unwinnable" Cronkite today*

(*Again, I'll point out that I think of Mr. Cronkite as a hero and model American for his WWII era brave as hell in-the-field journalism, and I'll acknowledge that he was America's favorite news uncle in the early TV years, but beyond that he went from reporting the news to trying to manipulate it, to all our shame.)

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Yeah, just about anyone these days can write for a blog and call themselves a journalist....oh wait. ;)

RIP Cronkite!

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...before journalism was glenn beck convincing rednecks the government was out to get them ...there was real journalism.

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At 27 never had the privilege of enjoying his newscasts, but from what I've read and seen in clips, he was a brilliant man with an ability to cut through nonsense and get to the issue.

Walter Cronkite
Peter Jennings
Tim Russert

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@Noidor: At 27 never had the privilege of enjoying his newscasts,

That explains why you put Jennings and Russert in with Cronkite. You should go back and watch Cronkite's WWII reports, then you'll see why Jennings and Russert were a joke - with virtually all other modern "anchors" - by comparison.

Cronkite was a far better man as a reporter in the field than the anchor he eventually became jockeying a desk. Yes, he pioneered the modern media broadcast show and anchor position, but ultimately I think we're all coming to the conclusion that "broadcast news" is as oxymoronic as "military intelligence".

You just can't do objective news in an advertiser supported and federally regulated medium without compromises (or, at least, appearance of compromise). It worked for a short while in the naive new world of black-and-white TV, where the spectacle of the technology overshadowed the content (and it's backers), but today where broadcasting is a commodity, it no longer holds cache.

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Bravo, never a moment inappropiate to inject politicism, not even to celebrate the life of a man.

Some respect you have...

RIP, Mr. Cronkite. Honestly, I never knew ye but I hope your life benefits future generations to the fullest. Losing a fellow auto enthusiast is sad indeed.

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And what respect do you have for the millions of dead Vietnamese and Cambodians who died as a result of Cronkite's dissembling on the Tet offensive?

If this was, let's say, Rush Limbaugh or some other prominent conservative commentator who died, would you also say that people should not speak ill of the dead or inject politics into the discussion?

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@TheHit: "Bravo, never a moment inappropiate to inject politicism, not even to celebrate the life of a man."

Funny, since the latter half of the man's life _was_ political advocacy (and I think we can agree now that, in retrospect, his later reporting was the same thing, albeit cloaked in "journalism") but somehow that is off limits.

It's always entertaining to see the naive rewrite history.

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