Debbie Schlussel: Buh-Bye, Walter Cronkite: He Lost the Vietnam War for U.S. on TV, Had American Blood on His Hands
I just heard the news that former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite died. And perhaps I will be one of the few with the guts to be real and say it: I'm not sad to see this overrated liar go. Buh-bye.
At 92, Cronkite enjoyed a long and glamorous life, unlike many of our late teen and 20-something American troops against whom he editorialized on a nightly basis. They died on the killing fields of Vietnam in no small part because he contributed to the video demoralization of America and the resulting lack of commitment to help our boys win the Vietnam War.
I'm sure that Cronkite will be remembered gushingly by all of the liberal mainstream media robots whom he spawned and who idolize him (and probably many gutless idiots on the right, too). In so many ways, he is their Michael Jackson, minus the creativity and talent. In life, they already exalted Cronkite far, far beyond what he deserved and completely ignored his awful transgressions against our country.
But the man they called "The Most Trusted Man in America" was really something far different: The Most Destructive Man in America. And that is how he should be remembered. He had the blood of thousands of American men--some of them really just boys--on his hands.
We may have lost the Viet Nam War on the ground because of half-hearted bureaucrats and politicians, not least among them Defense Secretary Robert McNamara who also recently passed away. But, well before that, we lost the war in a far more important theater--domestic America--because the Viet Cong's top media general on TV, Walter Cronkite, led many offensives against our troops, every single evening.
Cronkite fought against America while in Vietnam, where he covered the Tet Offensive and lied about it to American wives, parents, and siblings of our boys on the battlefield. While the 1968 Tet Offensive was actually a victory--a tactical defeat for the Communist Viet Cong--you'd hardly know it, since Cronkite covered it as an incredible loss and gave fuel for the anti-war movement's fire and its allies in the Congress and in Hollywood (Hanoi Jane, anyone?).
And it is in Cronkite's coverage of Tet that America lost the Vietnam War. Most military historians regard it as the decisive battle in the war because it shifted American public opinion against the war. And Cronkite is the head atop that rotten fish.
A month later, instead of just "covering the news" in this constant lying manner, Cronkite began editorializing and delivered a scathing commentary against America's war efforts.
Cronkite's slogan was, "And that's the way it is." But if it came out of his mouth, you could be sure of one thing: that's the way it wasn't.
The left idolizes this man because they credit him with helping end the Vietnam War. But let's be honest. He didn't help end it. He helped lose it. We eventually lost it on the field because we lost it on television, first. Vietnam was the first American war shown nightly on television news. And Cronkite was the Just Lose It crowd's Commander in Chief in that theater.
Our half-hearted efforts in Vietnam, in large part because of Walter Cronkite's on-air attacks, have had long-lasting effects, decades later. Even Osama Bin Laden has cited them in his lack of fear in attacking America. He studied our military history, with Vietnam as its cornerstone of cutting and running. That is Walter Cronkite's legacy. So are the generations of liars who modeled themselves after him and have spent decades on TV news tearing and dumbing down America from within.
I can't be nice and say that Walter Cronkite should "rest in peace."
To do so would be to ignore the posthumous wails of the restless ghosts of over 58,000 dead Americans who lost their lives so that Walter Cronkite could be a star and Vietnam could solidify its communist tilt. That's not to mention our 153,000-plus wounded.
It is the souls of these proud Americans that I pray rest in peace, not that of the man who helped perpetrate their loss. He is soulless.
Only they--Walter Cronkite's tens of thousands of victims--can forgive this evil man for his transgressions and journalistic crimes against them. Sadly for Cronkite, they've gone to a better place.
And he's rotting somewhere else.
Posted by Debbie on July 17, 2009 08:22 PM to Debbie Schlussel