10 Questions For Walter Cronkite

TIME ^ | 10-26-03 | By RICHARD ZOGLIN

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Despite a muscle tear a couple of years ago that curtailed his tennis playing, Walter Cronkite, who turns 87 next week, is still going strong. The former CBS anchor now writes a syndicated newspaper column, in which he has criticized the war in Iraq and other Bush Administration policies. TIME's Richard Zoglin talked with the man once dubbed the most trusted in America.
By

 

COURTESY OF WALTER CRONKITE

 

Sunday, Oct. 26, 2003
You have basically come out and said you're a liberal. How do you respond when critics say, "Aha, I knew reporters were liberal, and this is why the media is biased"? I do not consider a liberal necessarily to be a leftist. A liberal to me is one who—and it suits some of the dictionary definitions—is unbeholden to any specific belief or party or group or person, but makes up his or her mind on the basis of the facts and the presentation of those facts at the time. That defines what I am. I have never voted a party line. I vote on the individual and the issues.

Was there ever a time when you were anchoring that it was difficult for you to hold in your feelings? Oh, yeah, that was about daily, I think. But that's not unusual or extraordinary. That's what all of us who work for the front page do. That is part of our training. We learn to put our personal feelings behind us and try to write the facts as nearly as we can come to them as honestly as we can report them.

Do you believe most reporters are liberal? I think they're on the humane side, and that would appear to many to be on the liberal side. A lot of newspaper people—and to a lesser degree today, the TV people—come up through the ranks, through the police-reporting side, and they see the problems of their fellow man, beginning with their low salaries—which newspaper people used to have anyway—and right on through their domestic quarrels, their living conditions. The meaner side of life is made visible to most young reporters. I think it affects their sentimental feeling toward their fellow man and that is interpreted by some less-sensitive people as being liberal.

How do you rate George W. Bush as president? He's been the most adventuresome and in many senses the most revolutionary President since at least Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He has shaken up our foreign policy to an almost unrecognizable state.

[snip]

[billorites]

Why don't they pull this old fossil's feeding tube?

[freebilly]

A liberal to me is one who—and it suits some of the dictionary definitions—is unbeholden to any specific belief or party or group or person, but makes up his or her mind on the basis of the facts and the presentation of those facts at the time

Yeah, let's make up definitions now. What a jackass!

[Paul_B]

> A liberal to me is one who—and it suits some of the dictionary definitions—is unbeholden to any specific belief or party or group or person, but makes up his or her mind on the basis of the facts and the presentation of those facts at the time. That defines what I am. I have never voted a party line. I vote on the individual and the issues.

By his own highly biased definition, then, presumably he considers the overwhelming number of reporters liberal.

Either way he loses the argument. Delusion is a terrible thing.

[HadEnough]

"once dubbed the most trusted in America"

by the Marxist media!

The Marxist Media love to fawn over each other. Every Sunday morning they gather to talk with EACH OTHER about EACH OTHER.

[hosepipe]

Walter Cronkite = Andy Rooney on Dumerol....

[pgkdan]

I do not consider a liberal necessarily to be a leftist. A liberal to me is one who—and it suits some of the dictionary definitions—is unbeholden to any specific belief or party or group or person, but makes up his or her mind on the basis of the facts and the presentation of those facts at the time. That defines what I am. I have never voted a party line. I vote on the individual and the issues.

Liar. Typical liberal response...when caught just change the terms of the debate or the definition of the terms. Liar

[FReepaholic]

I recently read Donald Trump's book: "The Art of the Deal". In it, he mentions that Cronkite was living in the UN building ( I guess one of the buildings has apartments). Cronkite was complaining that a building Trump was constructing would block his view of the Chrysler building or some sort.

Living in the UN...now we know.

[Bullish]

liberal to me is one who—and it suits some of the dictionary definitions—is unbeholden to any specific belief or party or group or person, but makes up his or her mind on the basis of the facts and the presentation of those facts at the time.

What a lying, deluded sack of $hit!

Typical elitist liberal. Can't see what a total hypocrite he is.