Saturday, July 18, 2009
Walter Cronkite, the CBS broadcast news legend, who was called “The most trusted man in America,” and who spoke the words, “And now we have two Americans on the moon,” died Friday in New York City at the age of 92.
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My Liberal Identity:
You are a New Left Hipster, also known as a MoveOn.org liberal, a Netroots activist, or a Daily Show fanatic. You believe that if we really want to defend American values, conservatives must be exposed, mocked, and assailed for every fanatical, puritanical, warmongering, Constitution-shredding ideal for which they stand.
Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com
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From the Left 
I’m probably a bit older than some of you here, so I remember being home from school with some bug when Walter came on the air to announce the death of President John F. Kennedy.
If memory serves, it was right around lunch time.
My mother burst into tears and called my father at work on the green, wall-mounted phone in the kitchen. My brother — who was a bit older and in in high school, came home early and we all gathered around the TV and watched Water Cronkite in horror and disbelief. It seemed he was on the air for hours but I can’t be certain with the passing of time.
I was 6 years old and I clearly remember the moment when Uncle Walter told the world of Kennedy’s assassination. My Mother held me as she and I cried.
His was the voice I grew up with. I put him up there amongst the very best Americans who graced this nation.
some other great Cronkite moments –
being overwhelmed when Armstrong walked on the moon – he actually apologized for showing his joy
showing up on the Mary Tyler Moore Show
and finally 2/27/68 – when he told the US that Vietnam was kaput – and we should negotiate our way out of it – Johnson was through.
A man who, during his time, was the very face of news. May he rest in peace.
If today’s newspeople were as honest as Cronkite was, they would have their asses fired.
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My Uncle Walter moment came when he was anchoring from the broadcast booth live at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. The police had begun to riot in the streets, violently assaulting peaceful demonstrators, innocent bystanders and mainstream journalists alike. This was before the advent of instant-everywhere satellite video news coverage, so even inside the convention hall they had a hard time seeing or showing what was going on right outside their doors.
Up to a certain point, the newsmen and women could only report verbally, no pictures, what they themselves had seen with their own eyes, or heard from colleagues pay-phoning in (no cell phones, either) or staggering in to the booth after police gas attacks, etc, outside.
That point came when Cronkite suddenly burst forth with his own observation that “police thugs are assaulting reporters right here inside the convention hall,” where there were no demonstrators. It was an awesome moment of the media speaking truth to power, intrepid reporters exposing a Fascist government in action.
And it was one of the last such moments I ever saw in the MSM. Cronkite was upbraided for it, but he never retracted his characterization of those cops physically attacking his reporters as “thugs.” Gawd bless him for that.
Ya see, the old folks do have their uses: “RECYCLING THE ELDERLY”
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