Much has been said about Cronkite’s pronouncement that the war was lost leading to a downturn in public sentiment about the war, but I think time has clouded our memories of the context in which Cronkite’s comments were made.
At the time of the Tet Offensive, the public had already lost confidence in the war by several years. Protests had been going on for a couple of years by then. Johnson had all but given up on the war being successful (or at least trying to make it so). In fact, he threw up his hands and decided not to run for re-election.
Our liberal history teachers have all but erased the fact that Democrats escalated this war and turned it into a meaningless quagmire. It took Nixon to get us out (and he started planning our exit with victory at first, then succumed to the drumbeat from the public to just pull out). If you listen to liberals yakking, you would think that Nixon got us into the war and kept us there for a decade. It’s amazing sometimes how Kennedy and Johnson’s involvement are almost forgotten.
Many can argue whether we really belonged in that war. Personally, I don’t think we should have been there (or Korea - or Iraq for that matter). We have a propensity for getting more involved in local politics overseas than we should in my opinion. But in the end, Cronkite had the right sentiment with his pronouncement - and remember, he made it against the Democrat president that had shed the most blood there.
Cronkite certainly was a liberal nut sometimes, but I fondly remember him for his reporting through some of the most turbulent times in our history - and some of our most triumphant. His reports on the moon landings are classics.
I say: Rest in Peace Mr. Cronkite. He was the last of the greats. The profession of journalism crashed and crumbled behind him as he left in 1981.
You sir, are a troll.
Please take your languid liberal platitudes and go back to your friends at DU.
As a veteran of Vietnam and Operation Enduring Freedom, I take offense to your exalted opinions about which wars should and should not have been fought.
If you have a combat record, I will reconsider what I just wrote.