Walter Cronkite: Definitional Journalist Saw Big Media's Flaws

Walter Cronkite was the the most serious of serious journalists.

The former CBS anchorman cared not just about the next story but about the future of reporting in a country where was known for the better part of a half century as "the most trusted name in news."

So it should come as little surprise that what worried Cronkite in the last years of his life was the collapse of journalistic quality and responsibility that came with the increasing dominance of newsgathering by a handful of media corporations.

"I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that," Cronkite told me the last time we spoke about media issues.

The definitional American anchorman, who has died at age 92, recognized that Americans would always need diverse and competing media outlets, with the resources and the skills to examine issues from a variety of perspectives -- and to challenge entrenched power.

Cronkite was, almost by definition, an "old-media" man. He covered World War II, the Nuremberg trials, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, the civil rights movement, the killing of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the space race and the first moon landing and Watergate in a career that his successor in the CBS anchor chair, Dan Rather, said was characterized by "a passion for reporting and journalism."

Yet, as his 20th century gave way to our 21st, Cronkite made common cause with media reformers who objected to corporate monopolies and the dumbed-down discourse fostered by big media outlets that were more concerned with commerce and entertainment than with civics and democracy.

Speaking of the relationship between media and democracy, Cronkite told me several years ago: "The way that works is to have multiple owners, with the hope that the owners will have different viewpoints, and with the hope that the debate will help to air all sides, or at least most sides of the issues. But right now I think we're moving away from that approach."

The reporter, editor and anchorman from 1962 to 1981, whose name remained synonymous with American journalism to the day he died, fretted in particular about a 2003 move by the Federal Communications Commission to relax media ownership rules. After the commission approved proposals that would permit a single media company to own television stations that reach up to 45 percent of American households, and that would permit a single media company to own the daily newspaper, several television stations and up to eight radio stations in the same community, Cronkite said, "I think they made a mistake, I do indeed. It seems to me that the rule change was negotiated and promulgated with the goal of creating even larger monopolies in the news-gathering business."

The veteran television journalist was especially concerned about monopolies developing at the local level.

"We are coming closer to that (monopoly situations) today, even without the relaxation of the rules," Cronkite said. "In many communities, we have seen a lot of mergers already and that is disturbing. We have more and more one-newspaper towns, and that troubles me. I think that the failure of newspaper competition in a community is a very serious handicap to the dissemination of the knowledge that the citizens need to participate in a democracy."

Cronkite stepped down as the CBS anchor in 1981. But he remained active as a journalist well into the 21st century, writing a nationally syndicated column that appeared weekly newspapers across the country until just a few years ago.

It was as he was preparing that column that Cronkite and I got to know one another and began an ongoing conversation about the state of the media.

Much had changed since his days at the anchor desk, Cronkite said. And while he shied away from suggesting that everything was better in the good old days, he admitted that he was deeply troubled by the timidity of broadcast media when it came to questioning those in power.

In 1968, Cronkite stunned the nation when, after reporting from Vietnam on the Tet offensive and events that followed it, he went on air and openly questioned whether the U.S. military would ever prevail in that conflict.

"It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate,"Cronkite told his national audience. The anchorman went on to call for the government to open negotiations with the North Vietnamese.

Bill Moyers, who was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary, has speculated that Cronkite's blunt assessment of the war contributed significantly to Johnson's decision to propose negotiations and to drop out of the 1968 presidential race. (Moyers and Cronkite tangled in the 1960s, when the younger man was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary. But they eventually became so close that, when Moyers was honored for his lifetime of achievement as a broadcaster at the 2006 Emmy Awards, it was Cronkite who led the cheers.)

As the war in Iraq went horribly awry, I asked Cronkite whether a network anchorman would dare speak out in the same way that he had?

"I think it could happen, yes. I don't think it's likely to happen," he said with an audible sigh. "I think the three networks are still hewing pretty much to that theory. They don't even do analysis anymore, which I think is a shame. They don't even do background. They just seem to do headlines, and the less important it seems the more likely they are to get on the air."

In an era of increasing globalization and speed of communications, Cronkite frequently suggested in our conversations that the networks should be airing hour-long evening news programs. "For a country this big and this powerful and this diverse, a full hour is necessary," he explained. "To try to cover that in 19 minutes is simply impossible."

Cronkite also argued that the networks needed to get more comfortable with criticism. He believed that, after years of battering by conservative media critics, the networks were too averse to taking risks. During the discussion about whether a network anchor might question the wisdom of the Iraq war, he said, "If they (the networks) didn't do it, I think it would be because they are afraid to get in an ideological fight - or that doing so might lose them some viewers. ... I think that is a bad thing, a bad way to decide how to approach a story."

But what about Cronkite? Did he think that, if he were an anchorman today, he would have spoken out against the Iraq war?

"Yes, yes I do. I think that right now it would be critical to do so," he told me a few months after the invasion in 2003. "I think that right now we are in one of the most dangerous periods in our existence. Not since the Civil War has the state of our democracy been so doubtful. Our foreign policy has taken a very strange turn. And I do think I would try to say something about that."

What exactly would Cronkite have told America from the CBS anchor desk?

He said he would have suggested that the Bush administration had "confused" aggressive with defense and force with democracy.

"The policy we're following has involved us in a very expensive set of projects trying to export democracy at the end of a bayonet," he said. "That has caused a great deal of concern around the world and I think Americans need to understand this."

In particular, Cronkite said, he would have bluntly discussed his concerns about Bush's view of when it is appropriate to make war.

"Preventive war is a theory, a policy, that was put forth by the president in his policy address," Cronkite observed. "It upsets all of our previous concepts about the use of power. It is particularly worrying when our power is almost unchallenged around the world. It seems to me that this preventive action is a terrible policy to put forth to other nations. If we are viewed as a pacesetter by other nations, this is a policy that could lead to eternal war around the world. If every small nation with a border dispute believes they can go ahead and launch a pre-emptive war and that it will be approved by the greatest power, that is a very dangerous thing."

To Cronkite's view, Bush was a distinctly aggressive president. "I actually knew Herbert Hoover, believe it or not. And my time as a journalist goes back to Franklin Roosevelt. In my time, I don't think we have had any president as aggressive, except possibly Roosevelt. With Roosevelt, there was in his time a call for leadership, which he gave us. With this White House, they are aggressive on all fronts, whether there is a call for leadership or not."

At the same time, Cronkite said, the U.S. Congress had grown too pliant. Asked about the congressional debate on the Iraq war, he asked rhetorically, "What debate?"

Cronkite was heartened as the years passed and more members of Congress challenged the executive branch. He delighted when younger journalists, many of them working in new media, began to ask tougher questions and make blunter statements. He appreciated bloggers and independent media producers who used documentaries and YouTubes to hold the powerful to account.

Still, he recognized the lingering power of television in our society. And Cronkite continued to worry that broadcast news -- his medium -- had grown too deferrent to power, too stenographic, too consolidated.

"I don't know if I am in a position to encourage Congress one way or another," the old anchorman said. "However, if I were going to offer my opinion on the thing, I would certainly express my feeling that it would be better to have multiple ownership."

Walter Cronkite said he would, as well, remind the powerful that the role of journalism is not to tell Americans what they want to hear but what they need to know as citizens -- because, he said, "journalism is what we need to make democracy work."

Comments (116)

1. Another fine tribute Mr. Nichols. Well done.

   He was a good man.

   We are diminished.

   Posted by Benchrest at 07/17/2009 @ 8:16pm

2. I'll give Cronkite credit for never abandoning his leftist views.

   He was just another aid and comfort to the enemy liberal on Vietnam. He supported virtually ever leftist,anti-american cause that came around.

   Perhaps his mind left him after Kennedy's death.

   I hope he found peace.

   Posted by antisocialist at 07/17/2009 @ 9:19pm

3. I wonder if L.A. will give him a Michael Jackson style send off, or maybe NYC or some other left coast city?

   Posted by BigPasture at 07/17/2009 @ 10:30pm

4. He was the point man and the beginng of the MSM downfall from neutral observer and reporter of the facts to cheerleader for the left. The culmnation and the complete collapse of the MSM this year as it morphs into the Obama cheerleader and offical publicist wing of the Dem party is now ready to accept the first Cronkite We lost The War Award.

   I hope Cronkite apologised to all the Vietnam vets in his alone time before he passed on. He hurt many of them.

   Posted by YourJomamma at 07/17/2009 @ 11:37pm

5. Posted by YourJomamma at 07/17/2009 @ 11:37pm | ignore this person | warn this person

   very astute observation!

   Posted by BigPasture at 07/17/2009 @ 11:43pm

6. you guys are messed up.

   enjoy heaven, mr. cronkite.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 07/18/2009 @ 12:12am

7. Powerful essay, John. So glad that you had the chance to develop a dialogue with Walter Cronkite about the important issues underlying the media reform movement. I hope that it was a powerful affirmation of the choices you've made as a champion of this important cause, particularly as it relates to the preservation of a competitive, uncompromising, truth-seeking journalistic tradition in this country.

   I had the opportunity a few years ago to pursue a radio interview with Mr. Cronkite in the context of his role as an advocate for the Interfaith Coalition. The immediate opportunity fell apart, although the dream did not. And yet I scarcely feel regret, because it seems like I've been communicating with him all my life.

   There were very tangible reasons that he was the most trusted man in America. He epitomized authenticity and integrity. His was a career grounded in the importance of knowing and applying historical perspective in all of his reporting. He was eloquent, and yet plainspoken. Rooted in the finest traditions of print journalism, he modeled the power of fact-based objectivity as a standard well worth applying to the nascent world of broadcast news. And yet, he wasn't afraid to reveal his humanity in those moments when an automaton could never have led us so movingly and effectively through tragedy and triumph--the Kennedy assassination and the Moon landing being two places where his humanity was both a cathartic and comforting presence. The former event--which occurred on the eve of my fourth birthday, was perhaps my earliest memory; the latter, an occasion of shared childlike wonder.

   As a student of history, there are many people from whom I take inspiration. But I can think of no one who has served as well as a role model who never disappointed.

   Posted by MadisonJohnQ at 07/18/2009 @ 12:17am

8. The Times lead sentence notes his "plain-spoken grace."

   But times have changed, as plain-spoken grace would be a demerit today on US TV & radio. The sole survivor from that era, Bill Moyers, is openly mocked by rightwing "commentators," snickered at by the others. The rest are performers, acting as journalists, hired for their hairdos & talent for faking emotion & interest.

   I knew Walter in the 90s from summer vacations at the beach & sailing, a decent down-to-earth guy, always gentlemanly, never rude. Grace, a vanishing quality in an over-medicated, chemically induced guilt-free culture of narcissism.

   Posted by sloper at 07/18/2009 @ 01:55am

9. Cronkite was a fine journalist who exuded calm and grace, one of the most iconic and influential journalists of his time in the US, and a patriot who with his words helped contribute to saving no doubt tens of thousands of innocent cambodians, south vietnamese, north vietnamese, and american soldiers.

   Condolences to his friends and family.

   "Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days That are no more, and shall no more return. Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed; I stay a little longer, as one stays To cover up the embers that still burn." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

   Posted by hdthoreau at 07/18/2009 @ 02:32am

10. RIP, Mr. Cronkite. A Great Journalist.

    It is a shame that the radical right wing posters here have such a difficult time with reality. How many more American soldiers would they like to have seen killed before they too came to the only conclusion possible, there was going to be no "victory" in Vietnam? They are to blame for the deaths and mental anguish of the soldiers, not those that spoke truth to power. It is just more of the usual black is white "logic" we see here every day from the Nation neo-cons: those that send men to their deaths are not to blame for the deaths, it must be those that speak up against the lies ans futility of unnecessary war that are to blame.

    Black is white/ Palin is not a quitter/Saddam was threat/Vietnam in the hands of the communists would lead to Kansas in the hands of Ho. The actual reality is that communist Vietnam is now assisting capitalists in growing their wealth. JOMMAM actually desires that we use authoritarian communist China as a guide for our future!

    We can see it recently in the discussion of the CIA. One of the CIA's purposes is to violate the laws of other nations. But, when other people violate our laws, IN THEIR COUNTRIES, the neo-cons want to see them captured and kept in a prison in Cuba. Meanwhile they will lambaste Castro for holding people that violate Cuban law.

    Or, using the excellent discussion from "Republicans Throw in the Towel...", the same people that favor "originalism" also excuse the CIA for undermining congressional intent. One example would be Ollie North.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 09:09am

11. I find it interesting that the Family Values, Christian Ethics posters came to a liberal website to criticize the dead. Not only did they come here to post derisive comments about a fellow American, they were the some of first to get here. That tells me that they likely dropped what they were doing and rushed to The Nation, knowing there would be a eulogy here, and they could not wait to write ill of the dead. It speaks volumes about their twisted hateful minds.

    WWJD?

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 09:16am

12. Now, to the point of the blog, monopoly journalism.

    I think that Mr. Cronkite was correct. There is no doubt that we have seen a dumbing down of journalism in this country. As newspapers continue to drop, this sad state is going to continue. Interestingly, many of the people that rant and rave about "liberal journalists" (alleged "conservatives") seem to be content to allow monopolies to thrive. To me this appears to be the opposite of a "free market" where competition is the goal.

    Then, these same people are outraged when multi-nationals corporations (which they grant the same status as individual citizens) produce drivel that feeds the lowest common denominator. They create The Market, then are confused and angered by what The Market produces and seek to blame "liberals" for the decisions of MBA's that run the corporations.

    But, what are we to expect from those that think a 1/2 term governor from a small population state that can't get along with her own states republicans is The Anointed One (or for HAPPY, The Messiah with breasts)

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 09:25am

13. I hope Cronkite apologised to all the Vietnam vets in his alone time before he passed on. He hurt many of them.

    Posted by YourJomamma at 07/17/2009 @ 11:37pm.

    I sincerely hope Lyndon Johnson apologized to the Vietnam vets and their families before he passed on and GWB will apologize to all the vets of the unconstitutional Iraq war before he passes on.

    Posted by jarshadow at 07/18/2009 @ 09:40am

14. He was the point man and the beginng of the MSM downfall from neutral observer and reporter of the facts to cheerleader for the left....

    Posted by YourJomamma at 07/17/2009 @ 11:37pm

    THAT, should be on his tombstone!

    The generations behind us will never know how sobering it was, to see ole Walter literally cheering for N. Vietnam during and after the Tet Offensive! I don't remember much of him before that.

    He and Hanoi Jane.....what a pair!

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 10:26am

15. a beautiful flame has finally sputtered and gone out.

    that man built up some great karma and left a legacy of decency.

    taps...

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/18/2009 @ 10:30am

16. of course as the resident FAR RIGHT p-nut gallery, above, pointed out...

    he was a leftist...

    ah, relativity, so much more than a physics concept...

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/18/2009 @ 10:33am

17. oh...they want to rehash vietnam, the first ill thought out, lied into, sucking waste of money, effort, and lives of the era of american hegemony...

    never ends. america never does wrong, never makes a mistake, and those who dare point out any sipposed mistakes of our great and flawless experiment which never goes wrong...must be america hating leftists!!!

    what strange and recursive rabbit holes ideology leads minds down!

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/18/2009 @ 10:39am

18. Mr.. Nichols, thanks for an insightful piece on the sad news about Walter Cronkite. The passing of Mr. Cronkite is a sad day for all Americans.

    I was struck by the comments from the right wing following the article. They seemed to have a low tolerance for criticism of their wars, as well as decent reporting.

    R.I.P. Walter

    Posted by dpickles at 07/18/2009 @ 10:54am

19. They seemed to have a low tolerance for criticism of their wars, as well as decent reporting.

    Posted by dpickles at 07/18/2009 @ 10:54am

    You, inadvertently, just confirmed our views (from the Right) why Cronkite and the MSM, have headed down the Death March together. It is NOT the place of the main news-reporting outlets, to voice "criticism"; with the possible exception of criticizing their own profession.

    The nightly (flagship) news broadcasts are to present the news, don't even try to slant it....and most certainly, don't present them as Op-Eds!

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 11:14am

20. Happyhypocrite-You get your news and opinions from the biased Rush and then repeat those opinions on here.All news is biased because humans have something to do with it.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 11:17am

21. You get your news and opinions from the biased Rush and then repeat those opinions on here.All news is biased because humans have something to do with it.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 11:17am

    Can you tell me if Rush was on the radio when the VW was raging? Don't try to convince me you're THAT stupid.

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 11:54am

22. happy-I said that you repeat those opinions that Rush gives you on here and since blogs did not exist back then I must not be talking about back then.I have no idea who told you what to think back then and only commented about the here and now.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 11:59am

23. happy-Rush was too busy trying to avoid Viet Nam to be on the radio,like so many others that you modern conservatives admire and listen to.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 12:11pm

24. Can you tell me if Rush was on the radio when the VW was raging? Don't try to convince me you're THAT stupid. Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 11:54am |

    Nope; he was attending Boy's State...like Cheney, Clinton, Lott, and yours truly.

    Posted by snowball777 at 07/18/2009 @ 12:15pm

25. This commentary at WaPo is a must-read:

    What's Next, Mr. President -- Cardigans?

    By Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie

    Sunday, July 19, 2009

    Barely six months into his presidency, Barack Obama seems to be driving south into that political speed trap known as Carter Country: a sad-sack landscape in which every major initiative meets not just with failure but with scorn from political allies and foes alike....

    From a lousy cap-and-trade bill awaiting death in the Senate to a health-care reform agenda already weak in the knees to the failure of the stimulus to deliver promised jobs and economic activity, what once looked like a hope-tastic juggernaut is showing all the horsepower of a Chevy Cobalt...

    ....most important, as with Carter, his specific policies are genuinely unpopular. The auto bailout -- which, incidentally, is illegal...has been reviled...Majorities have said no to bank bailouts and to cap and trade if it would make electricity significantly more expensive.

    According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, more than 80 percent are concerned that health-care reform will increase costs or diminish the quality of care...

    Obama seems to believe that saying one thing, while doing another, somehow makes it so. His first budget was titled "A New Era of Fiscal Responsibility," even as his own projections showed a decade's worth of historically high deficits. He vowed no new taxes on 95 percent of Americans, then jacked up cigarette taxes and indicated a willingness to consider new health-care taxes as part of his reform package. He said he didn't want to take over General Motors on the day that he took over General Motors.

    Such is the extent of Obama's magical realism...

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 12:19pm

26. happy-I said that you repeat those opinions that Rush gives you on here...

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 11:59am

    I've said time and again, Rush is behind the news cycle generally by 1/2 day to a full weekend....he TAKES my opinion and share them w/30 millions!

    Did you know Cronkite died yesterday? That Mark Davis sat in for Rush yesterday? And, use your brain now.....that means Rush hasn't opined on the passing of Cronkite, I have; as usual, before my man gets back on the radio!

    Thanks for the opportunities to repeat this over and over for new(er) readers!

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 12:23pm

27. happy-Actually,it is you that repeats what Rush says and it is irrelevant that Rush has not mentioned this death,yet since you know how Rush will feel.No,Rush does not look on here or call you in order to know what to say and it is Rush that you copy with your magic/messiah nonsense and not the other way around.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 12:27pm

28. Cont'd from WaPo on our "magical" Magic:

    Such is the extent of Obama's magical realism that he can promise to post all bills on the Internet five days before signing them, serially break that promise and then, when announcing that he wouldn't even try anymore, have a spokesman present the move as yet another example of "providing the American people more transparency in government."

    ....president has not quite grasped is that the American people understand both irony and cognitive dissonance. Instead, Obama has mistaken his personal popularity for a national predilection toward emergency-driven central planning. He doesn't get that Americans prefer....rational deliberation rather than one sky-is-falling legislative session after another.

    Obama's insistence on taking advantage of a crisis to push through every item on the progressive checklist right now is threatening to complete that cycle within his first year.

    What are his options? First, stop doing harm. Throwing money all over the economy (and especially to sectors that match up with Democratic interests) is the shortest path to what Margaret Thatcher described as the inherent flaw in socialism: Eventually you run out of other people's money.

    ....Even his chief source on the topic, economic adviser Christina Romer, now grants that calculating jobs "created or saved" by Team Obama is simply impossible.

    Which leads to the second point: Stop it with the magical realism already....

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 12:31pm

29. And finally, the WaPo:

    Which leads to the second point: Stop it with the magical realism already.

    Save terms such as "fiscal responsibility" for policies that at least minimally resemble that notion. Don't pretend that a budget that doubles the national debt in five years and triples it in 10 is the work of politicians tackling "the difficult choices." Americans have a pretty good (if slow-to-activate) B.S. detector, and the more you mislead them now, the worse they'll punish you later. Toward that end, producing real transparency instead of broken promises is the first step toward building credibility.

    That the administration is now spending millions of dollars to revamp its useless stimulus-tracking site Recovery.gov is one more indication that, post-Bush, the White House still thinks of citizens as marks to be rolled.

    Finally, it's time to connect the poster boy for hope to the original Man From Hope. After Bill Clinton bit off more domestic policy than even he could chew, leading to a Republican rout in the midterm elections of 1994, the 42nd president refocused his political intelligence on keeping his ambitions and, as a result, the size of government growth, limited. Though there is much to complain about in his record, the broad prosperity and mostly sound economic policy under his watch aren't included.

    This shouldn't be a difficult task for Obama. As a political animal, he has always resembled Clinton more than Carter. This might help him avoid the Carteresque pileup he's driving into. Far more important, it just might help the rest of us.

    Nick Gillespie is the editor of Reason.com and Reason.tv. Matt Welch is editor of Reason magazine.

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 12:34pm

30. Thanks to Nick and Matt......for so eloquently backing up my contention: BHO is in fact, Magic!

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 12:35pm

31. happy-It is Rush who said that BHO is magic and you are just repeating what Rush said.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 12:37pm

32. From the WaPo commentary, we learn that Christina Romer has backed off the Kool-aid.....but look who else is becoming `normalized'?

    =================================

    Larry Summers cites Google search as progress Tags:

    By EAMON JAVERS | 7/17/09 1:27 PM EDT

    POLITICO 44

    Of all the statistics pouring into the White House every day, top economic adviser Larry Summers highlighted one Friday to make his case that the economic free-fall has ended.

    The number of people searching for the term "economic depression" on Google is down to normal levels, Summers said.

    Searches for the term were up four-fold when the recession deepened in the earlier part of the year...

    ================================

    Ladies and gentlemen, now do you see why Obamanomics is such a rip-roaring `success'?

    I nominate the entire Magical Econ. Team, including Geithner, for the Nobel Prize....now that their mentor, Dr. Krugman, has gotten his!

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 12:45pm

33. happy-I'm no economics expert,but I am aware that it takes awhile for new economic policies to take effect so,like with any new POTUS,we must wait and see prior to jumping to conclusions and declaring the end of civilization as we know it.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 12:52pm

34. Walter Conkrite was a class act. He showed bravery against the Nazis during his WWII reporting when he accompanied the 101st Airborne on their gliders into Europe; braved the wrath of the likes of Nixon and Johnson; and never lost his common sense or down to earth style.

    Happy and others spew hatred, change the subject, once again decontextualize "facts", and serve as the willing sirens of unmitigated power, wealth, greed and fear.

    The pathetic verses the brave.

    Good bless you, Walter.

    Posted by Dwight Wall at 07/18/2009 @ 12:52pm

35. HAPPY, quoting the liberal media to make his point about...the liberal media?

    Zero shame.

    but again, what should we expect from someone that calls President Obama the "Magic Negro" and Judge Sotomayor a racist?

    "The advantage of being in high places Is that people look so small

    And you feel like a big shot It makes you feel like a big shot It makes you feel like a big shot Makes you feel like a real big shot

    The trouble with being in high places

    Is when you fall it's a long way down

    The trouble with being in high places

    Is when you fall it's a long way down

    The trouble with being in high places

    The trouble with being in high places

    The trouble with being in high places

    The trouble with being in high places

    Is when you're down nobody picks you up

    The trouble with being in high places

    Is when you're down nobody picks you up

    Cuz you acted like a big shot

    So what happened to the big shot

    So what happened to the big shot

    You thunk you were a real big shot -Los Lobos

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 1:18pm

36. Posted by i'm nobody at 07/18/2009 @ 12:52pm

    It's part of their nonsense. Nothing is the fault of theirs, or those they vote for or those whose products they buy and support. It's all somebody else's fault.

    2001 recession? Clintons fault.

    2008/9 recession? Obamas fault.

    Absolution is the key to self adulation.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 1:23pm

37. Absolution is the key to self adulation.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 1:23pm

    That's great, Crabwalk! I actually was on a listserv a few months back where Obama was blamed for getting us into Iraq War 2. You see, it all started when he was about 12 years old......

    Posted by Dwight Wall at 07/18/2009 @ 1:46pm

38. the first ill thought out, lied into, sucking waste of money, effort, and lives of the era of american hegemony...

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/18/2009 @ 10:39a

    ever heard of the war of 1812?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 07/18/2009 @ 1:46pm

39. You see, it all started when he was about 12 years old......

    Posted by Dwight Wall at 07/18/2009 @ 1:46pm

    Well, duh! Driwght!

    That's when young Barak was getting his Islamic radical madrassa education, but after he planted a fake birth certificate in Hawaii!

    Everybody knows that.

    -----

    Posted by frosty zoom at 07/18/2009 @ 1:46pm

    Remember The Main!

    Revenge for the Gulf of Tonkin is our national Right!

    Saddam must pay for 9/11!

    God made America, we must be right.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 2:00pm

40. ever heard of the war of 1812?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 07/18/2009 @ 1:46pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    long before the era of american hegamony.

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/18/2009 @ 2:06pm

41. hegEmony...

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/18/2009 @ 2:06pm

42. i dunno.....

    manyfist destiny and all.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 07/18/2009 @ 2:10pm

43. that's it!

    obama officially sucks:

    "Ketchikan mill is awarded Orion North timber Deal marks first timber sale in roadless area under Obama

    By Kate Golden | JUNEAU EMPIRE

    The U.S. Forest Service agreed Monday to sell timber to a Ketchikan mill in a roadless area of the Tongass National Forest after the Obama administration's approved the sale.

    Orion North timber sale is the first such awarded since Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced in May he would personally review all timber sales in roadless areas of national forests in the next year.

    He's doing that while the Obama administration takes some time to review the Clinton-era Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which banned road-building on about 58 million acres of national forest land nationwide but has been challenged since it was issued."

    Posted by frosty zoom at 07/18/2009 @ 2:11pm

44. Cronkite will be missed.

    It's sad that the conservative point men of derision and facetious commentary give him such little credit. It seems to be mostly about the mistake that was Vietnam. A wrong war, an expensive war, a war where many died in the mud while those who 'fought' the war from afar still tout it's moral correctness. It's an argument that will never be won, for the roots of this discord lie entangled at the very base of consciousness, down where selfishness and greed intermingle with the immature mindset that is most of our current american culture. Mix in a little jesus and you have got another trend towards blind nationalism based on fear and an almost superstitious dread of all that is different.

    Bless Walter Cronkite. Though he is called a leftist by the small minded, insecure group of conservatives here, I just call him by the one name he deserves and had fought for with his voice: American.

    Posted by ficheye at 07/18/2009 @ 3:07pm

45. I don't remember much of him before that. He and Hanoi Jane.....what a pair! Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 10:26am

    Your goal here is not to inform but to inflame. There's no debate, only a rebate. Cash is king!

    Some of the saddest, angry commentary I've seen yet. I'm sure that you can improve on that, however.

    Posted by ficheye at 07/18/2009 @ 3:17pm

46. Happy and others spew hatred, change the subject, once again decontextualize "facts", and serve as the willing sirens of unmitigated power, wealth, greed and fear.

    Posted by Dwight Wall at 07/18/2009 @ 12:52pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    That's all they know.

    Posted by jarshadow at 07/18/2009 @ 4:20pm

47. "Bless Walter Cronkite. Though he is called a leftist by the small minded, insecure group of conservatives here, I just call him by the one name he deserves and had fought for with his voice: American."

    Posted by ficheye at 07/18/2009 @ 3:07pm

    I liked Walter. Although i wouldn't call him leftist, I did hear an interview he gave a few years ago, in which he said, "Of course" many journalists, including him, had a liberal bias. He said it came from their experiences in journalism, on the police beat, where they are exposed to less fortunate lives.

    How can you dislike someone as straightforward as that? I'm still waiting for Dan Rather and his producer to fess up to poor judgement in trying to backstab Bush. Cronkite earned our respect with his honesty.

    Posted by twillie at 07/18/2009 @ 4:47pm

48. Posted by twillie at 07/18/2009 @ 4:47pm |

    Agreed...Cronkite is guilty of no more than having compassion for his fellow man, which the cons often mistake for 'leftist' politics instead of human decency.

    They can't seem to entertain the idea that he felt for the draftees being sent into ill-planned, poorly executed combat with no real justification beyond theories about tiled-based children's games.

    He will be sorely missed by most and will remain both a legend and inspiration to journalists around the globe for his frank honesty and stalwart integrity, even in the face of news most potzers from today couldn't deliver.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQVg_YN8LnY

    Compare and contrast with the 'new breed'...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGeZQrpZbjI

    RIP, most-trusted man in America.

    Posted by snowball777 at 07/18/2009 @ 5:50pm

49. Twillie.. Backstab Bush..?? You really think Bush Showed for any of his Guard Duties..?? If anyone got railroaded its D. Rather.. But dont dazzle me with your truthiness..

    MSM....?? Check me if im wrong, but is FOX not MSM..?? You cant have it both ways ... On one hand claim all the AM airwaves (some FM) and also claim (as Billo the clown) that you are the most viewed "news" source... And on the other hand play the victim of the MSM... LOL...

    Can anyone name one "journalist" on the FOX network...?? ONE..?? Is Rush a journalist..?? Hannity..?? Beck..?? Come on....

    Cronkite WAS a journalist.

    Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/18/2009 @ 6:52pm

50. "Agreed...Cronkite is guilty of no more than having compassion for his fellow man, which the cons often mistake for 'leftist' politics instead of human decency."

    You may misunderstand me. I respect him for being honest about his liberal bias. I don't respect the liberal bias. It's inexcusable to let it taint your reporting of FACTS, the job of a reporter. It clouds your objectivity, and may result in you choosing some facts over others. Bernard Goldberg presented a clear illustration in his book 'Bias'.

    Posted by twillie at 07/18/2009 @ 7:37pm

51. bernard goldberg is unbiased?

    Posted by urmygyro at 07/18/2009 @ 7:53pm

52. what do YOU think?

    Posted by twillie at 07/18/2009 @ 8:22pm

53. left, right, left, right.....

    you guys march on debating the undebatable.

    5 media conglemeroids play you like earl scruggs' banjo.

    capitalism becomes communism; communism becomes becomes capitalism.

    and the "money" moves upward.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 07/18/2009 @ 8:28pm

54. I watched Walter Cronkite from late 1962 until he retired. He was the best. Cronkite had the presence and the voice. Peter Jennings was good too, but no one was like Cronkite. I like all of CNN International's reporters, but Jim Clancy is the best. You get background and analysis there. BBC is good too. The rest of cable news is trash journalism.

    Posted by pjcasey at 07/18/2009 @ 10:06pm

55. bernard goldberg is unbiased?

    Posted by urmygyro at 07/18/2009 @ 7:53pm | ignore this person | warn this person what do YOU think?

    Posted by twillie at 07/18/2009 @ 8:22pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Bernie Goldberg... Fox news 'contributor' and part time Bill-O yes man..?? please..

    If your "America's most watched news source" ... Would you not be Mainstream..?? Does this compute ..??

    Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/18/2009 @ 11:27pm

56. "If your "America's most watched news source" ... Would you not be Mainstream..?? Does this compute ..??" Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/18/2009 @ 11:27pm

    Do you mean, does your post compute? No, it doesn't.

    Posted by twillie at 07/19/2009 @ 12:01am

57. Dont play dumb... Your too good at it..

    unless your not acting..?? Sorry ...

    Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/19/2009 @ 12:15am

58. Oh... what really dosen't compute is why on earth you would waste $5, and 3-5 hrs of your life on a Bernard Goldberg book.... Yikes...

    "A clear illustration"... Laugh Out Loud.

    Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/19/2009 @ 12:23am

59. "We have more and more one-newspaper towns, and that troubles me. I think that the failure of newspaper competition in a community is a very serious handicap to the dissemination of the knowledge that the citizens need to participate in a democracy."

    ouch. The unchallenged rag in my town is disgusting by and large. and let's face it, the medium is the massage. Thank you for posting this. I will miss dear WK. 73

    Posted by A_Pax_On_Your_Houses at 07/19/2009 @ 12:26am

60. the medium is the massage.

    Posted by A_Pax_On_Your_Houses at 07/19/2009 @ 12:26am

    ay, there's the rub.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 07/19/2009 @ 07:46am

61. Poor christian conservatives, unable to fend off the ATTACKS from the liberal "minority" in this country!

    If only they had god...or could be armed...or had their own media outlets...or they could get the word out to their fellow Americans without Katie Couric being so mean.

    Sad sacks. Victims of themselves.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/19/2009 @ 08:09am

62. HAPPY, I saw two black people running down my street...should I alert the police? They might have taken my freedoms while I slept!!!

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/19/2009 @ 08:12am

63. Why, the MSM opposed Bush's war in Iraq with so much leftist hatred!! If only they hadn't tried to hide the FACT that Saddam had nukes, 20,000 litres of Anthrax and drone planes capable of reaching HAPPY. They clearly showed their America hatred, having learned from Cronkite. If only Dan Rather had not attacked our tough Commander in Chief, using the same kind of documents Bush used to support his conclusion that Saddam was buying uranium from Niger. If only the MSM hadn't fought their reporters being in bed with the military.

    If only the liberal media, led by VIACOM and General Electric (known leftist America hating groups) had not witch hunted scooter libby for trying to help Fitzgerald! If only the liberal media had kept secret that Bush violated US law spying on his own citizens or kept secret the pictures of US troops torturing Iraqis that were being saved from Saddam.

    If only Walter had not witch hunted Nixon, forcing a good American, a fine gentle man who loved African Americans and Jews, to leave office before he finished bringing communist China into trading partners with the US.

    The USA would be a nicer, mo' better Christian Nation were it not for there meddling into government affairs.

    The Founders Original Intent was clearly to not have such a free press. Any reading of the 1st Amendment that says they did is liberal anti-American feminist nazi revisionist history.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/19/2009 @ 08:31am

64. If only liberal MSNBC had hired Mike Savage earlier and not kept that America hating Phil Donahue around so long after the war started!!

    Peter Arnett, an NBC and National Geographic correspondent, was fired for giving an interview with Iraqi officials in which he questioned the United States' role and saying the "first war plan had failed.

    Damn liberals!!

    A University of Maryland study on American public opinion found that:

    * Fifty-seven percent of mainstream media viewers believed the falsity that Iraq gave substantial support to Al-Qaeda, or was directly involved in the September 11 attacks (48% after invasion).

    * Sixty-nine percent believed the falsity that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks.

    * Twenty-two percent believed the falsity that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. (Twenty-one percent believed that chem/bio weapons had actually been used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq during 2003)

    * In the composite analysis of the PIPA study, 80% of Fox News watchers had one or more of these misperceptions, in contrast to 71% for CBS and 27% who tuned to NPR/PBS.[16]

    An investigation by the New York Times discovered that top Pentagon officials met with news analysts where they gave the analysts 'special information' and then tried to convince them to speak favorably about the Iraq war. [22] The discovery was based on 8000 pages of secret information that had been revealed to The New York Times through a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The article states that top Pentagon officials would invite news analysts to secret meetings, and urge the analysts to speak positively of the war. Often, the US would give "classified information," trips, and contracts to the news analysts.

    Damn Liberals!

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/19/2009 @ 08:35am

65. If only the liberal MSM had not admitted that Barry Macaffery was a paid stooge of the White House.

    If only they had not allowed celebrity entertainers to set the tone of pre-war coverage!

    4200 American soldiers might be alive today.

    In Bizzarro land of neo-con living where poor, poor Christians are under attack daily from liberal media outlets like General Electric and Sumner Redstones companies.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/19/2009 @ 08:41am

66. Posted by crabwalk at 07/19/2009 @ 08:35am |

    洗腦! - Mao

    ...rinse, repeat. - Bush / Cheney / Rummy / Hannity / Beck / Limp-bog

    Cons: undisputed masters of the thought-terminating cliché.

    Posted by snowball777 at 07/19/2009 @ 08:51am

67. Cons: undisputed masters of the thought-terminating cliché.

    Posted by snowball777 at 07/19/2009 @ 08:51am | ignore this person | warn this person

    thought-terminating cliché. perfect!

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/19/2009 @ 11:57am

68. Sorry he is dead.

    Posted by IlyaKuryakin at 07/18/2009 @ 12:05pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    there. not using anything else you said, nor altering what you did say, i just chopped that post down to a nice, short, eulogy...

    i think i figured out what i don't like about you beyond a knee-jerk gag response to your schoolyard america taunting.

    you have no decency. you have nothing positive to offer to any discussion. you make no effort at decency and fool yourself by thinking otherwise because of your profound sympathy for all the buzillions of poor non americans us americans have fucked or killed or whatever...

    is that all there is to you?

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/19/2009 @ 12:13pm

69. PowerLine explains why some of your parents & grandparents don't agree w/u:

    Walter Cronkite, RIP

    July 18, 2009 Posted by John at 1:21 PM

    Walter Cronkite's death at age 92 has triggered a wave of nostalgia...

    Cronkite was a skilled performer and a hard worker, but he helped to sow the seeds of his profession's decline. He was a liberal who often wore his ideology on his sleeve...a left-winger who views liberalism as just "the way it is,"..." But the fact is that Cronkite's liberalism was widely recognized and criticized...Cronkite crossed the Rubicon with his ill-informed pontificating about Vietnam following the Tet offensive, but his liberalism was often on display, as in his notoriously biased and politicized coverage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

    Cronkite warred openly with the Nixon administration...a time when Americans had caught on to politicians, but had not yet caught on to journalists. I don't know who would win such a poll today...but I'm quite certain it wouldn't be a journalist. For that, Walter Cronkite bears as much responsibility as anyone.

    PAUL adds: ...I regret that we weren't around to puncture Cronkite's work. John is probably being charitable when he calls Cronkite's reporting on the Tiet offenseive "ill-informed." It was no secret that Tet was a massive defeat for the Viet Cong....

    So why did Cronkite report Tet as a defeat for the U.S. and the South Vietnamese? I doubt that he was flat-out lying....my conclusion is that he chose to believe Tet was a victory for the VC because that's what he wanted to believe....he wanted us to leave Vietnam and was committed to a narrative in which we were on the road to defeat.

    In any event, Cronkite's reporting on the Tet offensive was a criminal disservice to the truth and to his country..

    Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 12:24pm

70. ....why did Cronkite report Tet as a defeat for the U.S. and the South Vietnamese? I doubt that he was flat-out lying....my conclusion is that he chose to believe Tet was a victory for the VC because that's what he wanted to believe...

    Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 12:24pm

    Do any of you youngster see similarities between Cronkite's reporting based on his belief and the MSM that pushed Magic on us, extolled his `experience' (which in truth, was a total lack of substance), ran chills up their own legs doing so, painting John McCain as the anti-Christ?

    Or the way the MSM is reporting on Magic's `success' as POTUS? As world Citizen #1?

    Cronkite is the beginning of the end of Mainstream Media....maybe he RIP (bastard)!

    Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 12:35pm

71. Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 12:24pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    source?

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/19/2009 @ 12:38pm

72. Happy-No one that puts thought into it will see similarities between Cronkite and having the MSM push the magic negro on us since that never happened.Informed people will know that your branch of the MSM tried to push the inexperienced Palin on us and tried to claim she was experienced,but we will remember that the other sides MSM said that Obama was inexperienced,but said that that did not matter.The MSM is reporting the climbing unemployment rate and other such things that make Obama look bad.If you read what the MSM media said prior to Cronkite you will see that the MSM was biased before Cronkite was born.Humans are biased critters and the MSM is filled with humans.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/19/2009 @ 12:45pm

73. The world's oldest man, Henry Allingham at 113 years old, passed away recently. He was one of the last remaining combat veterans of WWI. World leaders of all stripes should take heed of his wisdom when he said (paraphrasing), War is a terrible thing. It's too bad nations can't talk before because they end up talking after anyway."

    On the subject of Uncle Walter's fears, wouldn't it be nice if corporations butted out of the news business once and for all so that their reporters wouldn't have to reflect their owners political wishes or have to have a love affair with a particular candidate. People need honest reporting, not slanted journalism, especially those people who are intellectually lazy and beleive sound bytes. Hannity is fond of saying that journalism in America is dead. He should know. On the other hand, who is NBC owned by again?

    Posted by gunslinger1 at 07/19/2009 @ 12:50pm

74. Posted by i'm nobody at 07/19/2009 @ 12:45pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    looks like HAP's spewing some clever but spurious anarcho-liberatarian propaganda.

    notice the assumptive nature of certain assertions. regardless it sounds a lot like the official heritage foundation/american enterprise institute interpretation (smear?) of mainstream american media.

    most of the now fading right wing noise machine mantra comes from that need to get people thinking about something other than the REPUBLICAN NIXON administration's FELONIES. what better way to get people looking away from them, than to scream, "look over there!" and intentionally undermine people's trust in their own perception of external reality by discrediting any notion of commonly perceived reality.

    ie - choose the reality you want to believe - here is ours. it fits our ideology.

    david brock did a great analysis in his book, "the right wing noise machine".

    Posted by dexter666 at 07/19/2009 @ 12:58pm

75. "In any event, Cronkite's reporting on the Tet offensive was a criminal disservice to the truth and to his country.."

    Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 12:24pm

    Even supposing, for the sake of argument, that this was true;

    Compare the carreer of Cronkite to ANY "journalist" on Fox and tell me why you refuse to criticize them for blatent lies?

    Posted by Malcontent at 07/19/2009 @ 1:47pm

76. Compare the carreer of Cronkite to ANY "journalist" on Fox and tell me why you refuse to criticize them for blatent lies?

    Posted by Malcontent at 07/19/2009 @ 1:47pm

    When Fox causes causes a country to suffer like S.Vietnam did, with millions of refugees, re-education camps, boat people pillaged by pirates & drowning at sea, or commit the Harry Reid type of treason by proclaiming "The Surge has failed" and "We've lost the (Iraq) War", I will turn on them just as well....and it could happen if someone like Sorrors buys Fox!

    Cronkite and the Leftist media created conservative media in all its shapes and form today....don't ever forget that! For every action, there is a reaction.....though the reaction time may differ!

    The country is slowly, coming to grips with what the Nov. vote has brought us.....time, my friends, is indeed, MY friend!

    Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 1:59pm

77. If you read what the MSM media said prior to Cronkite you will see that the MSM was biased before Cronkite was born....

    Posted by i'm nobody at 07/19/2009 @ 12:45pm

    The state of media bias before Cronkite is not of my concern. The America then, was performing at a high level.....as I had nice, blissful (if not overly prosperous), kiddie/child-hood.

    Cronkite's reporting on the Tet Offensive mattered far more as I was in HS & approaching Selective Service age...eventually signing into the Navy ROTC...my dad was career military and I was pro-military....makes a big difference, shouldn't it? Just as the military today, tend NOT to think the MSM is on their side.

    Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 2:07pm

78. Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 2:07pm |

    The ones that aren't `embedded' or paid handsomely to tout the prevailing logic of the DoD, that is.

    Posted by snowball777 at 07/19/2009 @ 2:41pm

79. Can you tell me if Rush was on the radio when the VW was raging? Don't try to convince me you're THAT stupid.

    Posted by Happy at 07/18/2009 @ 11:54am | ignore this person | warn this person

    He was too busy MAKING SURE he flunked his draft physical, like so many of the manly warrior studs in the neocon pantheon.

    LOL

    Posted by schnellerheinz at 07/19/2009 @ 2:55pm

80. "Oh... what really dosen't compute is why on earth you would waste $5, and 3-5 hrs of your life on a Bernard Goldberg book.... Yikes... "A clear illustration"... Laugh Out Loud." Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/19/2009 @ 12:23am

    Do you dispute the facts he presents? If so, then by all means tell us which ones. Or do you just not like the facts he presents? And, why would I not spend money and time reading from all sides of the political spectrum? If I didn't, I might be as narrow-minded as ..... You?

    Posted by twillie at 07/19/2009 @ 3:06pm

81. "the Harry Reid type of treason by proclaiming "The Surge has failed" and "We've lost the (Iraq) War", "

    I think the worst of it is that, AFTER the surge succeeded and there was a marked, profound, and dramatic drop in violence throughout the whole of Iraq that is still lasting today, the very leftists who earlier had said Iraq was an impossibly costly lost cause in 2005 and 2006 and 2007 and who were willing to admit defeat after a month or two of giving the surge a "chance" (and who, of course, said that any mass genocide that would follow our shameful retreat would all be Bush's fault) unbelievably declared that OF COURSE violence in Iraq went way down and it was ALL DUE to factors which were knowable at the time they said no such outcome was thinkable (i.e. Shiite dominance in Baghdad, the Awakening movements in Iraq that started in 2005, ect).

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 4:28pm

82. Walter Cronkite did good!

    ===========================

    Boston Globe's largest union set to vote for 2nd time on contract with deep wage, benefit cuts Click here to find out more!

    By Associated Press

    11:19 AM EDT, July 19, 2009

    BOSTON (AP) -- Members of The Boston Globe's largest labor union will decide this week whether to accept a new contract that makes deep cuts to wages and benefits.

    Monday's vote will be the second in two months for the Boston Newspaper Guild, which narrowly rejected a similar deal in June......When the Guild rejected the first offer, the Times Co. instituted a 23 percent wage cut.

    The new contract would cut salaries by 5.94 percent, compared with 8.3 percent in the previous proposal. Both contract proposals include unpaid furloughs, a pension freeze, a reduction in health care benefits and the elimination of roughly 190 lifetime job guarantees.

    Posted by Happy at 07/19/2009 @ 6:04pm

83. Twill...

    Are you incapable of understanding my statement.? If I find it hard to believe that you would waste time pulling B. Goldbergs rantings out of the book bin at dollar general, WHY would I...??

    I saw him trying to push his book on The Spin Zone (I am forced to watch sometimes due to military AFRTS* programming..) So which of his FACTS do I dispute... lol ... Listen you don't get the call back and the $900 appearance fee if Bill-o dosent like you...

    B. Goldberg and Facts.?? lol... Once again , He's a right wing tool just like ALL the other 'guests' Bill-o Dosent yell at or talk over...

    Dont PRETEND to be so "middle of the road and above things"... Your not... You have never posted anything resembling "middle" here... So get over yourself.

    Im sure you have a copy of "Culture Warrior" and a few Ann Coulter "tomes" as well... Your Lost. Did you get a Factor Mug when you became a Platinum Member ..??

    Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/19/2009 @ 6:20pm

84. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 4:28pm |

    You mean the one's who said Shinseki was right about needing a `surge' in the first place?

    Please stop pretending that this `war' was managed with anything but the most blatant incompetence ever seen North, South, or West of Tikrit.

    Posted by snowball777 at 07/19/2009 @ 6:39pm

85. Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/19/2009 @ 6:20pm

    Ah, the small, uninformed mind. Who said I was "middle of the road"? So, anyway, have you READ Bias? If not, why not? You might find something that challenges your notions of the world. Unless of course, if you are afraid that maybe your views are wrong?

    BTW, 'your' is a possessive determiner, as in "your opinions are ill-informed and feeble", while "you're" is a contraction of 'you are', as in "you're barely literate".

    Don't be afraid to educate yourself.

    Posted by twillie at 07/19/2009 @ 7:08pm

86. "Please stop pretending that this `war' was managed with anything but the most blatant incompetence ever seen North, South, or West of Tikrit."

    'War'? Why the quotes? No, I agree with you. Bush was a fool for not starting out with higher troop levels from the beginning, and the troop surge was only barely enough to achieve success. But at least Bush made the right stand on principle and changed his policy and sent in more troops when overwhelming evidence said that he should do so, even though it was a politically unpopular idea due to the hysterically myopic propaganda of pro-Saddam leftists actually convincing the American public that facts were irrelevant to the greater ideological "truth" that insurgencies always win the hearts and minds of the majority in any country in which they function EVEN IF their plan is simply to rape, murder, torture, chainsaw, bomb, shoot, blow up, cleanse, and torment everyone in sight with the help of Bin Ladenists and genocidal fascist Baathists and EVEN IF they planned to do so in crowds of multi-ethnic Iraqis to recreate the fear and animosity that Saddam's policies cultivated after the order of his regime had collapsed, hoping that this would cultivate a mass civil war. This is only one of many irrational leftist fallacies, such as the bizarre belief that IF ONLY we had prolonged Saddam's divide-and-rule policies, then there would have been civil peace when his regime inevitably collapsed. Another example would be the belief that all individuals are equal in every way as well as essentially interchangeable, or the belief that individual corporations in America making more money than the GNP of respectable nations is proof that capitalism is a BAD thing.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 7:34pm

87. I was 13 years when my brother, cousins and our friends started getting drafted for Vietnam. Prior to that we would watch Walter Cronkite and all those guys at CBS News because they were trusted by our folks. We had heard of Walter, Edward R, Douglas Edwards and the rest covering WWII and all the major events that affected America. Those guys will be missed. Walter saved us from ourselves by reporting the truth and not some bullshit like the right wing news outlets. We would not have a free non-segregated society if not for folks like him. He put it right in our faces. I will miss him and people like him, he was a wise man. The news media of what ever sorts could learn a lot from people like him. Tell the damn truth and speak truth to power. 'That the way it is"

    Posted by sweetsdawsonusn at 07/19/2009 @ 9:03pm

88. Lol.. Twillie...

    You and 'Your' ilk... Is that right...or no..??

    I mean, you can be lumped into the same category as all the religious wingnuts and neo-cons.. So you are very easy to dismiss... Which the majority of Americans do.

    I am by no means the Rhodes Scholar you obviously are, but my life expiriences I will put against anyones..

    So get out of your Y2K bunker, turn off the FOX and come back when your narrow lil' mind can compete.

    Sincerely, your pal.

    Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/19/2009 @ 9:24pm

89. Vvf1969, you are out of your intellectual league debating twillie. You are not just easy to parody, but you parody yourself in everything you write. "my life expiriences I will put against anyones.. "

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 10:29pm

90. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 7:34pm |

    "'War'? Why the quotes?"

    I don't buy into pre-emptive war with a nation that hadn't actually attacked us.

    "...Bush was a fool for not starting out with higher troop levels from the beginning, and the troop surge was only barely enough to achieve success."

    Don't pull your thang out, unless you plan to bang, and don't plan to bang, unless you plan to hit something. - Bombs Over Baghdad, RATM

    "But at least Bush made the right stand on principle..."

    I must have missed the 'principles' behind Abu Graib, BlackWater free-fire zones, and Zappy shower profiteering.

    "This is only one of many irrational leftist fallacies..."

    Or the rightist fallacies of WMDs we still have yet to see, being greeted as liberators, and a recovery that would fund itself.

    "Another example would be the belief that all individuals are equal in every way..."

    It's not that I'm against capitalists, but their methods, when forming systemic risk to the economy of the US, if not the world, are abhorrent and inexcusable.

    As was their bailout from the federal till.

    Posted by snowball777 at 07/19/2009 @ 10:39pm

91. The bailouts were a very bad idea, I agree.

    "Or the rightist fallacies of WMDs we still have yet to see"

    Obviously, we never would have attacked Iraq if it had WMD which it would use on us in retaliation. Slow on the uptake, aren't you naive leftists? However, Saddam Hussein was a genocidal butcher on a truly epic scale who ran concentration camps, funded terrorism, threatened Israel, committed genocide, killed 1.5 million people in wars of aggression, slaughtered another million and starved another half million to death by manipulating the Oil-for-food program. He also was about to get WMD from North Korea, which he had paid for and was promised, until the coalition began surrounding Iraq in preparation to invade. Saddamist Iraq was the only state in history to have violated all four of the UN's conditions under which a state is qualified for regime change. It violated each of them numerous times.

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 11:05pm

92. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 11:05pm |

    I must have missed how the nerve agents would have made it out over the coastal waters and into our cruise missile batteries.

    Saddam was an a-hole, no doubt, but a good deal of the butchery you outlined took place with our tacit approval and, in some cases, logistical assistance...due to our hard-on against Iran in the 80s.

    You know...back when Rummy was shaking hands with the Butcher of Baghdad.

    All nasty stuff, but nothing worth sending in American troops over...or at least we should've done it in the early 90s when we had the chance.

    Did we really need to cause Iraqi civilian megadeaths to dispose of one despot?

    I think I've heard this, "we had to destroy them to save them" logic before...

    Posted by snowball777 at 07/19/2009 @ 11:51pm

93. Vvf1969, you are out of your intellectual league debating twillie. You are not just easy to parody, but you parody yourself in everything you write. "my life expiriences I will put against anyones.. "

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 10:29pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Shheesh... With a screen name like libertyfortheoppressed , I'd better listen ... Your rantings are also drivel.. Which camp do you fall in, Neocon or Bible thumper..??

    Debating ..?? Hardly, big guy...

    However, Saddam Hussein was a genocidal butcher ... But he was our genocidal butcher ... no..?? You do know where he got the Chem Weapons ..? Good ol' Uncle sam....

    Concentration camps ..?? Wha ..??

    Threatened Israel..?? Who dosen't..??

    WMD's from NK..?? Jesus, you are a fiction writer by trade..??

    And why is it Neocons who have nothing but disdain for the U.N. , love to bring up that he violated UN sanctions... And can quote sanction numbers...???

    And also... (lol) Your use of the word coalition makes me smile... There was no coalition... Wordplay...

    You take everything hook line and sinker, dont you .... FOX NEWS ALERT !!!

    Fool..

    Posted by Vvf1969 at 07/20/2009 @ 01:04am

94. What a surprise - Larry, Happy and Rio attacking a great man, after spending years rabidly defending the smallest of the small. And, boys, Walter Cronkite was a great man, and, contrary to the slimy likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter, Weiner-Savage, and the rest of the loudmouthed chicken hawks in right wing media, you could actually trust what Walter reported.

    Posted by jmusolino at 07/20/2009 @ 01:07am

95. "Which camp do you fall in, Neocon or Bible thumper."

    Neocon. I'm an atheist.

    "However, Saddam Hussein was a genocidal butcher ... But he was our genocidal butcher "

    That's a bad attitude.

    http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ "On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported--and the David Kay report had established--that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)"

    Ignoring Saddam's sponsorship of Palestinian terrorists, state sponsored Jiihadist group (the Fedayeen Saddam), anti-semitic and jiihadist media, harboring of Abu Nidal, meetings with AQ, praise of the 9/11 attacks, and harboring of Yasin who helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993, all of which are mentioned in the article I linked to above, there is also this gem: http://www.slate.com/id/2211267 "it remains the case that a thermonuclear weapon detonated on the Zionist foe would also annihilate the Palestinians and destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. (Even Saddam Hussein at his craziest recognized this fact, promising with uncharacteristic modesty only to "burn up half of Israel" with the weapons of mass destruction that he then boasted of possessing.)"

    Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/20/2009 @ 02:14am

96. "When Fox causes causes a country to suffer like S.Vietnam did, with millions of refugees, " Propaganda Eater HAPPY

    Uh, Hap, ever heard of Iraq?

    I know you are too cowardly to go there... but surely you recognize your handy work?

    "Refugees International has observed extreme vulnerabilities among the approximately 1.5 million Iraqi refugees living in Syria, Jordan and other neighbors of Iraq, as well as the 2.7 million internally displaced persons within Iraq. Most are unable to access their food rations and are often unemployed; they live in squalid conditions, have run out of resources and find it extremely difficult to access essential services. "

    Don't let the facts ruin your preconceived notions and your fear of "the left".

    What kind of scumbag spends all day speaking ill of the dead?

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/20/2009 @ 06:01am

97. "I think the worst of it is that, AFTER the surge succeeded and there was a marked, profound, and dramatic drop in violence throughout the whole of Iraq that is still lasting today,"Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/19/2009 @ 7:34pm

    "DUBAI, 23 June 2009 (IRIN) - With just a week left until all US forces must leave Iraq's major cities, violence in the war-battered country appears to be on the rise once again. More than 100 people have been killed in bombings and shootings in Iraq in the past three days.

    22 June 2009: A bomb in Husseiniya vegetable market on northern outskirts of Baghdad killed five. Parked car bomb in central Baghdad's Karrada District killed five. Suicide bomber killed himself and seven others outside west Baghdad's Abu Ghraib municipal council building.

    20 June: A suicide truck bomb killed 73 and wounded about 150 others outside a mosque in Kirkuk, 250km north of Baghdad

    12 June: A gunman killed the head of parliament's biggest Sunni Muslim bloc and five other people at a mosque in west Baghdad.

    10 June: 33 killed and 70 wounded in a car bombing in the town of Batha, west of Nasiriyah in Dhiqar Province.

    8 June: A bomb attached to a minibus killed seven people and wounded 24 others at a bus terminal in southern Baghdad.

    3 June: 9 killed and 31 wounded by a bomb planted in a cafe in southwest Baghdad.

    21 May: A suicide bomber killed 12 and wounded 25 in a market in Baghdad's southern Doura District. Three US soldiers also killed in the attack. In Kirkuk, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded eight.

    20 May: At least 41 people killed and 82 wounded in a car bombing in the Shula District of northwest Baghdad.

    6 May: A truck bomb killed 10 people and wounded 37 others in a vegetable market in Doura District, southern Baghdad.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/20/2009 @ 06:04am

98. OK, a brief synopsis:

    The neo-cons despise the federal govt. Walter was a bug in the feds side..ergo they hate Walter?

    The neo-cons are still upset that the civilians lost the Vietnam War..ergo they applaud the civilians that ran the Iraq war, a war that continues 6 years after we were told it would take "weeks, maybe months, certainly not years."

    The neo-cons told us to "listen to the troops", but then they deride any troop that questions the civilian leadership, Shinseki, Gen Hoar, combat troops like Medea Benjamin etc.

    what a lot of their chum-talk boils down to is: In order to save the Vietnamese from communism, we had to kill most of them. In order to save the Iraqis from Reagans ally, we had to kill a lot of them. Better we kill them than Saddam, because if Saddam killed them while the US watched and sold Saddam equipment, it would be the US's fault. Except the Us is never at fault.

    Bizzaro world. All that matters is that they assume an opposite view of "the left".

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/20/2009 @ 06:17am

99. I find it interesting that the Family Values, Christian Ethics posters came to a liberal website to criticize the dead.

    Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 09:16am

    Mornin' Crabman,

    I agree that we should exercise restraint and not criticize the dead. But I went back and read what Larry, Rio, and John wrote, and I don't think it was criticism. It certainly wasn't a glowing testimonial, but it wasn't criticism either. To say, "I disagreed with X, but I hope he found peace" is far from criticism.

    Criticism is, "He was vain" or "He was a jerk" or "He only cared about himself". (Certainly I'm not saying these comments apply to Mr. Cronkite.) That is an acusation. To say, "I disagreed," or he hurt many vets is a simple statement of fact.

    Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/20/2009 @ 07:32am

100. Personally, I didn't start paying attention to the news until I was out of college, and Cronkite retired before I entered high school.

     So I don't have any personal experience with his work, but I have seen the "editorial" regarding the Viet Nam war. I think it is admirable how clearly he deliniated his opinion from the objective facts of the news.

     He struck me as a respectful, serious, and dedicated professional who is deserving of the reverential treatment he receives.

     May he rest in peace.

     Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/20/2009 @ 07:39am

101. Cronkite made common cause with media reformers who objected to corporate monopolies -- John Nichols

     *******

     Interestingly, many of the people that rant and rave about "liberal journalists" (alleged "conservatives") seem to be content to allow monopolies to thrive.

     Posted by crabwalk at 07/18/2009 @ 09:25am

     *******

     You do realize that the way you two used the word "monopolies" is an oxymoron. (Unless it is applied to non-competing industries, such as , "auto and energy monopolies".)

     If there is only one entity supplying news to a market you have a monopoly. If there are only two entities supplying news to a single market you don't have two monopolies, you have two competitors.

     And even if we got to the situation where there was only one American corporation that published newspapers, and one American corporation that published magazines, and one American corporation that controled network broadcast, and one American corporation that controlled cable prodcast, and one American corporation that controlled satelite broadcast--

     Even if there were only these five "product" monopolies, there still wouldn't be a news monopoly because all five of these products provide news.

     Furthermore, with the advent of the internet, even an American monopoly would be a news monopoly because it is so easy to get news from other countries.

     You guys are doing to "monopoly" was the feminists did to "rape". If a monopoly is bad then everything bad must be a monopoly. Well, that's just not true.

     Finally, who do you criticise the most? Fox news (or Faux news). The one corporation that doesn't follow the monopoly of liberal orthodoxy get critisized as needing to be eliminated. That is more than a little hypocritical.

     Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/20/2009 @ 07:54am

102. Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/20/2009 @ 07:54am |

     And if Rupert's News Corp owns newspapers, magazines, network broadcast stations, satellite broadcast stations, cable channels, AND big chunks of internet news sources?

     Are they a monopoly by strict definition, as in Taft's anti-trust crusade? No, but they do own enough of each of those markets, worldwide, to be considered dangerous conglomerates who are tending toward monopoly.

     ClearChannel is another example of 'market consolidation' run amok and Fox Noise is just the most egregious example of same.

     So tell us, Sorites, at what point do we start putting on our thinking caps and dealing with the problem... 60%, 80%, 99%?

     Posted by snowball777 at 07/20/2009 @ 09:05am

103. To say, "I disagreed," or he hurt many vets is a simple statement of fact. Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/20/2009 @ 07:32am |

     Just because they're too sheepish to say what they mean and they beat a retreat into weasel-words doesn't excuse their disrespectful behavior.

     If you don't have anything nice to say,...

     Posted by snowball777 at 07/20/2009 @ 09:07am

104. Darin has excuses for everything on the right. But, let a journalist question Bush...and they are clearly America haters and Islamic radical supporters.

     Posted by crabwalk at 07/20/2009 @ 12:34pm

105. The Role of journalists is also not to tell the public what they THINK we should here, either. Nor is it to distort events in an effort to enrage and inflame so as to maintain adherents to a preconcieved agenda.

     Both can be considered great sins of todays media, and is all the more reason the next generation of Americans must learn the technique of disseminating all views, pulling the relevant facts from both sides and drawing their own conclusion.

     The Fourth Estate has its "Press Secretaries" too, and Gov. has no monopoly on manipulation.

     Posted by CHIP THORNTON at 07/20/2009 @ 1:35pm

106. "With just a week left until all US forces must leave Iraq's major cities, violence in the war-battered country appears to be on the rise once again"

     Ah, so what you are saying is that we shouldn't be leaving so soon?

     "If you don't have anything nice to say,..."

     Yet another example of an irrational leftist fallacy! What are you, a Communist? "Don't ever say anything that might possibly hurt someone's feelings!" "Don't ever offend anyone!" "Disagreement is a bad thing! Debate leads to conflict! Conflict is pointless! Nothing means anything! EVERYTHING is subjective! There is no right or wrong answer to ANY question! Public discourse should be nothing more than premeditated pandering!" "Be NICE, as opposed to MEAN! Don't be a MEANIE!!!! OR I'LL START CRYING!" Your advice was heeded by Saddam Hussein, who amputated the tongues of anyone his secret police imagined might disagree with Iraqi government policy.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/20/2009 @ 2:14pm

107. Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/20/2009 @ 2:14pm |

     When the object of the ire is the RECENTLY DECEASED, I believe special consideration is not unreasonable, but we'll remember your caveat for when you pass on.

     If you take a look at some of the other threads, you'll see that I have no problem dishing (and receiving) vitriol with the best (or worst) of them.

     Now that your panties are untwisted, I'd suggest you pull them up.

     Posted by snowball777 at 07/20/2009 @ 2:48pm

108. let's all kick the corpse.

     Posted by emile duBois at 07/20/2009 @ 3:01pm

109. "remember the Maine'

     Posted by emile duBois at 07/20/2009 @ 3:06pm

110. So, when Nixon the mass-murdering war criminal died, all you antiwarriors stopped openly dissenting from the revisionist school of "Nixon wasn't so bad"? Obviously, Cronkite was a good man, not an evil man. There is no need to write an obituary about him comparable to what Hunter S. Thompson wrote about Nixon. The "critics" here, however, only have stated that they disagreed with the man, found fault in him at times, but could admire him in some ways and hoped he was at peace. It is equivalent to criticizing some of a great artist's work while praising other examples of him excelling in an appreciation and analysis of the pantheon of what he left behind following his demise. Your uncritical attitude would require a patronizing and dumbed-down discourse, wherein everyone would say "I agreed with EVERYTHING Cronkite said ALL THE TIME throughout his ENTIRE career" or would praise an artist as "producing a MONUMENTALLY GREAT MASTERPIECE OF LITERATURE EVERY TIME HE WROTE ANYTHING". Your praise as such would be impersonal and generic hyperbole pre-ordained so as to carefully avoid a genuine exchange of ideas.

     By the way, all neocons do not think the US was right to go into Vietnam. That choice was the wrong one, and an unspeakable crime. Nor do they admire Reagan, a senile crook and vulgar fraud who was a hypocrite to a profound and remarkable degree. Nor all they all religious; I view religion as inherently irrational.

     Posted by libertyfortheoppressed at 07/20/2009 @ 5:09pm

111. "Criticism is, "He was vain" or "He was a jerk" or "He only cared about himself". (Certainly I'm not saying these comments apply to Mr. Cronkite.) That is an acusation. To say, "I disagreed," or he hurt many vets is a simple statement of fact."

     Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/20/2009 @ 07:32am

     Allow me to take issue with your last sentence;"To say, "I disagreed," or he hurt many vets is a simple statement of fact."

     The first part,"To say, "I disagreed," .... is a simple statement of fact.", is fine.

     But how do you make the leap to"To say, ... he hurt many vets is a simple statement of fact."?

     Could you give, say, a percentage of Vietnam's fatalities that were Walter's fault? Perhaps a number? Even one name?

     Did you mean their feelings? Or was that just speculative, partisan hyperbole?

     Eric

     Posted by Malcontent at 07/20/2009 @ 9:23pm

112. Did you mean their feelings?

     Posted by Malcontent at 07/20/2009 @ 9:23pm

     I took it to mean hurt their feelings; I did not take it to mean caused them to be physically injured. Sorry for the confusion.

     Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/21/2009 @ 08:28am

113. we're suppose to worry about soldiers' feelings being hurt?

     what a soft world if people with guns on other people's land are suppose to get sympathy.

     Posted by urmygyro at 07/21/2009 @ 08:37am

114. For a couple of days now, I've been thinking about the progression from Cronkite to Rather. I know there is something important to be said about the fact that Cronkite was America's most trusted person and his successor devolved into an Captain Ahab-like figure in his quest to destroy his great white whale, President Bush.

     I still haven't figured out what that important thing is yet. So while I'm thinking, here are Rather's thoughts:

     http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/07/ mr-cronkite-what-a-man-.html

     Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 07/21/2009 @ 10:01am

115. Was he a big stick of free-press dynamite

     or just a hyped-up piece of old crockite?

     when media cults fin'lly kick the bucket

     extolled they are like lobsters of Nantucket

     Posted by WWW at 07/21/2009 @ 6:33pm

116. Sailin' boats with more teak than the average joe's house has pine.

     A "journalist" my ass.

     Cracker ass cracker.

     Wouldn't know an honest day's work if it hit him in his old cracker ass nuts.

     Good Riddance.

     Posted by bleedingheart at 07/21/2009 @ 7:57pm