[BenLurkin]

Walter Cronkhite: BARF!

[FryingPan101]

Cronkite is nuts. Nobody in my family has constantly displayed "riches." If a person thinks we're rich because our toilet flushes, then they're nut cases too.

[jlogajan]

Cronkite is right, but in an uninteresting way -- if we'd all been muslims this never would have happened -- first, jet planes would never have been invented -- second, materials science would still be building structures out of mud -- third, muslims would need to kill other muslims except for pleasure.

[fhayek]

If "errant foreign policy" means our alliance with Israel, I would submit to Mr. Cronkite, that we cannot allow a group of thugs to dictate to us who we can and cannot be friends with. If he wants to cede that determination to others, then we will have yielded a major part of our sovereignty to our ENEMIES.

[hoosierskypilot]

Typical ivory tower liberal. This is guy doesn't have clue as to what most people think. He hobnobs only with the rich and famous liberals and goes home to his gaited community and he thinks he has a clue. Not!

[itzmygun]

Oh, the liberal spew... It's time to call these morons what they are - traitors. I'm all for free speech, and goodness knows I've ranted about our government and country many times. I don't, however, believe in free lies, especially when the truth is so obvious and so dangerous. Of all the hijackers, I didn't see one who looked poor, and I know the people who sent them had to have plenty of money.
Those attacks were the result of people who simply hate America and all we stand for - just like Walter Cronkite, apparently.

[skeeter]

Please, somebody slip this goofy old fart a sedative.

[Diogenesis]

THIS JUST IN: CBS NEWS' Cronkite suggests future co-hosts
for CBS News to be Castro and Rather, consistent with
CBS corporate policy.

[RooRoobird14]

....ah yes, a blast of flatulence from Cronkite.....and then he speeds of to Newport Rhode Island on his yacht........

Definite Threatcon Delta Barf Alert required here.

[RonF]

There is certainly no question that tolitarian governments around the world use the fomentation of anger against the U.S. as a masque for their own activities, convincing their people that their ills are due to the U.S. oppressing them, instead of their own government.

There is also no question that destitute populations are the breeding and recruiting ground for terrorists.

The U.S. has dealt with many such governments in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. They are the governments of those countries, and we have no choice in many cases but to deal with them. Embargoes don't seem to work, and it's beyond even our capabilities to lead armed rebellions in all of them. It is to our shame that misguided policies of the U.S. in the past have helped create a few of such governments. But in the main, such governments are self-generated. Corruption, tolitarianism, and theocracies were all well-established before the U.S. was founded, and will be with us for years yet. Their shortcomings are their own, and have to be solved by their own people.

Jealousy of our accomplishments and our material poessessions is a normal human reaction. And you can see plenty of examples in America of people, well-fed and well-off, who will blame anything bad that happens to them on anyone else but themselves, so it shouldn't be surprising that people to whom flush toilets truly are riches would do the same, especially when they have the encouragement of the only government, the only churches, the only newspapers, and the only radio and TV stations that they have any access to.

We can't just sit here and say, "Oh, these people are fools." They are what they are. They aren't going away. In my opinion, we have to beef up our defenses, modifying them in a way to best combat the new type of wars. We also need to do a better job of identifying who our friends and enemies are. We need to ensure that our enemies understand that the gloves are off. We need to ensure that our friends understand that they are our friends, that we will work with them, but that they can't sit on the fence.

We need to strip down our aid to oppressive countries and modify it so that instead of lining the pockets of corrupt officials with cash, we deliver aid, in the form of goods, materials, and services not readily convertible to limousines, palaces, or swiss bank accounts directly to the people we wish to aid, and plaster the American flag all over it so that the people eating it know who it came from. We should consider doing so as agressively as we would prosecute a war; few such governments would be in a military position to keep us from providing aid if we were determined to do so.

Finally, we should use our undeniable technological superiority to communicate directly with these people. All they see about us much of the time are the propaganda their governments spew, and the cultural excesses of popular American television "dramas". We should be setting up ships, satellites, and land-based stations broadcasting news and information of all kinds 24 hours a day.

[NativeNewYorker]

Yep. Dem rich folk shore nuff had it comin' to 'em. Yesirree.

[Dick Bachert]

"Cronkite warned, 'are not going to live forever in the shadow of the riches that we display constantly.'"

WALTER, BABY, WHEN YOU SELL THAT BEAUTIFUL YACHT OF YOURS, DIVEST YOURSELF OF YOUR SEVERAL LOVELY HOMES, GIVE THE DOUGH TO "DA POOR" AND LEARN TO LIVE ON SOCIAL SECURITY, I MAY LISTEN TO YOUR RANTS.

Until then, Walter, GO TO HELL, OK???

Have a WONDERFUL DAY, moron!

[leprechaun9]

Who gives a fiddlers fart what Cronkite thinks or says? He is another Kennedy idolizer, like Doris Kearns Goodwin and Chris Matthews (host of Whiffleball)!

[farmfriend]

CLASSIC VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit, the Frog, appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green."

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house, where the news stations film the group singing "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Al Gore exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share".

Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act", retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in (which just happens to be the ant's old house) crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Wlater always has been a bleeding-heart commie.

[hoosierskypilot]

"...terrorism is caused by 'this great division between the rich and the poor in the world...."

Hog wash! According to Cronkite's logic, Osama was poor. Wrong! OBL was worth $30 mil last I heard. (Well, that was before the U.S. military turned him into a greasy spot somewhere in the Afghan mountains. NOW he's poor.)

How about Arafat? After all, he wrote the book on terrorism. Is he poor? Nope. He's worth $1.5 billion.

Or the Saudis, some of the chief supporters, sponsors and co-sponsors of terrorism. Are they poor? Hardly.

And at least one of the pilots of the doomed planes on 9/11 was the son of a wealthy businessman.

Cronkite made a general statement that betrays the man's ignorance of the facts. As an elitist liberal, that's how he exists: in his own fabricated world of make-believe and lies.

These people (terrorists) are not motivated by money, ideology or power. It doesn't matter if you're talking about the Saudis, the Taliban, Arafat, or the Greenies.

They are evil. Period. Theirs is a barbaric, Neolithic, ignorant mindset that rewards absolute evil. They run the same program as "dabblers" in satanism: all they know is inflicting pain on innocent people. Muslims, Jews, Christians. No matter. Everybody screams the same.

Sorry, Cronkite, they don't need a reason. All they need is an excuse.

[Howlin]

'this great division between the rich and the poor in the world.'

Fact: ALL the countries of the world are richer than they were ten years ago, except one in Africa, which one, I cannot remember.

Not rich enough for Walter, I'm sure.......but still...

[RetiredArmy]

Just another leftist/liberal/socialist/communist of the blame America first crowd with a large case of diarrhea of the mouth. Stupid old goat. Go back into your coma Walter, no one gives a rats @$$ what you have to say.