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north central Oklahoma |
Before I ever heard the word, or it's definition, Cronkite engaged in "spin".
That is to say, he admitted to presenting the news, during the Vietnam War, in such a way, as to lead the audience to his personal political viewpoint.
Kronkite was being interviewed, by whom, I don't remember, it was televised. He was asked why he presented news about the turpitude of U.S. soldiers, crimes against the citizenry, the fraudulent "Tiger Cages", Me Lie Massacre, etc. But NEVER spoke of the "war crimes" of the Viet Cong, or the North Vietnamese Army.
His answer was "I want to see America out of Viet Nam, and I will present the news in a way that will accomplish that end".
I
This man, in my lifetime, led the charge whereby reporters ceased to report all the discovered facts. And instead, presented ONLY the facts that supported the reporter's own personal biases so that the reader / listener, would be led to the specific conclusion the reporter wanted you to come to.
In one way, Cronkite may have done as much as any other individual to help the NVA/VC win the war. During the North's Tet Offensive of 1968, Cronkite asked, "What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning this war."
Although the Tet Offensive was a major failure for the North, Cronkite and other liberal reporters helped to persuade the U.S. public that the offensive had actually been a major victory for the North. Biased, selective reporting also contributed to the one-sided view presented by Cronkite and the press.
After the offensive was over, Cronkite editorialized on camera, "We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and in Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . To say that we are mired in a stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. . . It seems increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out will be to negotiate."
It was Cronkite's comments which persuaded LBJ that the war was lost.
One can only imagine if Cronkite and his biased colleagues had a similar "anti-war" bias during the WW2 Battle of the Bulge, which took the Allies by surprise and caused an initial rout of the U.S. Army, "What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning this war."
Ironically, even by 1972, after virtually all U.S. ground troups had left, the South was still able to defeat the North's Easter Offensive with the help of U.S. airpower and other support. It was only after ALL US support was withdrawn was the North -- which still enjoyed full support from China and the USSR -- able to deafeat the South.
After his retirement, Cronkite admitted to his liberalism, and that of his colleagues, "I believe that most of us reporters are liberal . . . because most of us served our journalistic apprenticeships as reporters covering the seamier sides of our cities - the crimes, the tenement fires, the homeless and the hungry, the underclothed and the undereducated." Of course, he would never admit that their reporting was ever biased.
Here's some of Cronkite's leftist ideas:
http://www.mrc.org/Profiles/cronkite/welcome.asp
"I’m a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, that he probably set up bin Laden to this thing."
"...if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government..."
"A Soviet bomb was seen as an assault on us. But I saw it as part of their pursuit of nuclear equality. After all, what should we expect, that our enemy's just going to sit still there and not try to develop the bomb?"
"We may have to find some marvelous middle ground between capitalism and communism..."
It should be noted that Cronkite was involved with both the Brady Center and Handgun Control, Inc. Cronkite lent his name to a full page ad by HCI on June 9, 1999 in USA Today.
Cronkite was trusted because he looked and talked the part, not because he was trustworthy. When it comes to TV, movies, Hollywood, acting, etc, it's ALL fake.
With that, I am done with this thread. Don can drool over the man all he wants. He was just another member of the liberal press corp.
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Walter Cronkite has passed away.........
