Posted on 01/15/2006 4:20:31 PM PST by wagglebee
Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, whose 1968 conclusion that the Vietnam War was unwinnable keenly influenced public opinion then, said Sunday he'd say the same thing today about Iraq.
"It's my belief that we should get out now," Cronkite said in a meeting with reporters.
Now 89, the television journalist once known as "the most trusted man in America" has been off the "CBS Evening News" for nearly a quarter- century. He's still a CBS News employee, although he does little for them.
Cronkite said one of his proudest moments came at the end of a 1968 documentary he made following a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Urged by his boss to briefly set aside his objectivity to give his view of the situation, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit.
Then-President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told a White House aide after that, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."
The best time to have made a similar statement about Iraq came after Hurricane Katrina, he said.
"We had an opportunity to say to the world and Iraqis after the hurricane disaster that Mother Nature has not treated us well and we find ourselves missing the amount of money it takes to help these poor people out of their homeless situation and rebuild some of our most important cities in the United States," he said. "Therefore, we are going to have to bring our troops home."
Iraqis should have been told that "our hearts are with you" and that the United States would do all it could to rebuild their country, he said.
"I think we could have been able to retire with honor," he said. "In fact, I think we can retire with honor anyway."
Cronkite has spoken out against the Iraq war in the past, saying in 2004 that Americans weren't any safer because of the invasion.
Cronkite, who is hard of hearing and walks haltingly, jokingly said that "I'm standing by if they want me" to anchor the "CBS Evening News." CBS is still searching for a permanent successor to Dan Rather, who replaced Cronkite in March 1981.
"Twenty-four hours after I told CBS News that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday I was already regretting it and I've regretted it every day since," he said. "It's too good a job for me to have given it up the way that I did."
Another leftist stuck in the '60s
I've never heard it said better than this,
"Viet Nam was not the same thing as Iraq 1 which was not the same as Afghanistan which was not the same as Iraq 2.
Viet Nam was, at the end, a straight up infantry campaign in bad terrain, and in 1973 we demonstrated that we knew how to win that kind of war, and did. Decisively. Congress abandoned the military and the administration in 1975, or Saigon would be Saigon today. We at least learned not to use conscripts for a foreign war of attrition.
Perhaps we can learn from Viet Nam not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory." - Jerry Pournelle 01/09/2006
I should add, but more intelligent by far!
Mine too. We were raised right!
.
...After WALTER CRONKITE fooled us into leaving the Free People of a then Free South Vietnam behind to their fate at the hands of heavily Soviet-funded Communist bullies from the North...
...came:
Pictures of a vietnamese Re-Education Camp
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
...WALTER CRONKITE would have the same happen to a now Free Iraq,
...as he gears up to get his old Anti-Freedom TV Propaganda-spreading job back as CBS News Anchor in a new time of war.
...Only this time it's our own Freedom that's stake directly here at home with an enemy that's now just around the corner and up YOUR street.
...And WALTER CRONKITE knows it.
.
I'll never understand why we haven't run the warcrimes trials and brought this Cronkite guy up to the dock along with Robert McNamara and then hung them.
Cronkites legacy of separating reporting from advocacy has become the norm in television news.
"It's a neat trick," exclaims the 112-year-old Cronkite, who recently sailed his schooner to Havana "to massage Casto's bunion", in the words of 'the most rusted man in America.'
< / parody >
Cronkite lost any remaining shred of relevance when years ago, he got into an argument with 'Stuttering' John Melendez over the use of the word "friggin' "
It's time for this sanctimonious windbag to leave the United States and go live in one of the many mohametan paradises available.
Perhaps he would be happier in Cuba or Venezuela, where they at least use the same alphabet and he can use his semi-literacy to continue his ruse as a "sage".
The earth would be a much more satisfying place to live if it were more closely modeled on the television show Survivor.
LMAO!
**Then-President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told a White House aide after that, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." **
I guess right now President Bush is telling an aide that "If I lost Cronkite, I lost the Loony Left Wing of America." "Oh well - so be it."
The same reason we haven't done the same for the New York Times. No one in politics wants to go up against the media.
Not.
CLASSIC liberal nonsensical mindset. Dunno how many of you had the pleasure/misery of interacting with liberals during Katrina, but that was the first thing they started screaming: "Those poor people are dying down there because of Iraq." Absolute idiocy, but a liberal will sieze on any tragedy if they think it will help them score a point.
MM
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