Posted by
Optimus Magnus on Saturday, July 18, 2009 6:58:04 AM
(Originial working title: "Walter Cronkite: Hero of the Viet Cong")
Ideally, news should be kept separate from commentary (and vice-versa). Just tell me what happened. You report; I decide.
If 2008 was "the year journalism died" (Hannity), then February 27th, 1968 was the day it contracted inoperable cancer. Cronkite's denunciation of the Vietnam War has been given perhaps the most credit for turning the tide of public opinion against military operations against the Communists in Southeast Asia. It was nothing less than the most egregious abuse of power and popularity by "the most trusted man in America". Yes, he had the right to speak, but he did NOT have the right to editorialize without explicitly labelling his commentary for what it was: the journalistic malpractice of presenting opinions as news.
Yes, I realize that journalistic malpractice is now the norm and that Fox News is just a freak show channel because they at least make a decent attempt to present both sides of a problem, although I find them to be 60/40 lib/Conservative. The Communist News Network is trying to paint the rosiest picture of him by focusing on the JFK report and the moonshot. Meanwhile, Larry King's guest, Ava Braun-Couric, is focusing on the denunciation of the war and doing her (darnedest) to glorify that moment. It is time to call Cronkite's moment of infamy what it is: it is the greatest propaganda victory ever scored in the history of warfare. When you can get your enemy's most trusted voice of information to denounce their war against you, all that remains is to wait for the tide of public sentiment to turn against your enemy.
General Giap of the North Vietnamese Army recently released a collection of memoirs. In them, he stated that the Tet Offensive, contrary to what has been believed for years over here, actually set the Viet Cong back several years. We CLOBBERED them! General Giap also stated that, had we kept up Operation Linebacker II for just two more weeks, the North would have had no choice but to surrender. We had them on the ropes, folks. We were winning!!! Thanks to Goebbel-ites like Cronkite, et al, the American public was duped into believing that the war was a lost cause. How many millions of people died because of Cronkite's treasonous actions and their ripple effects? Rest assured, when the news broke that Cronkite was dead, I did not shed one bloody tear.