Fortune Favors The Bold

John Carney’s Ridiculous Anti-Cronkite Essay

The thread so far:

• Peter Feld’s Mediaite tribute
• John Carney’s essay
• J-Dub’s response
• YM weighs in

A couple of interesting viewpoints here: a contrarian and contemptuous view of Cronkite (no, I don’t buy the indifference argument, even if the writer himself is actually indifferent in real life; for the purposes of the essay, he’s contemptuous); the praise of Cronkite for breaking with journalistic tradition to insert an opinion (ummm, shouldn’t that sort of thing be saved for non-newscasts? That’s why our “news” today is such a mess); the argument that Vietnam was not a mistake and the suggestion that Korea was similar enough for both wars to be judged under the same lens (I can kinda get down with that).

I’m mostly in the Joe W. camp; Cronkite was not wrong about Vietnam overall (cue the old George Carlin line about old pinheads happily sending young boys to die in wars), even though I can’t claim an opinion on what Cronkite’s role or guilt was in the domestic furor at our armed services (a really awful problem that was almost as tragic as the war itself; we are lucky to live in times where Iraq veterans are embraced, not stoned). I have to agree that John Carney’s thinly-veiled contempt at Cronkite seems to lack a logical base, his argument is unusually unconvincing, and I have to assume that it’s just some irrational political-based grudge. (Though I will gladly help you build a crucifix for Dan Rather if you have some free time on the weekends; I’m good with a hammer.) I agree with the sentiment, though, that it was bad for our national dialogue that Cronkite was the monolithic news figure of his time, that he had no competition or debate equal; things are somewhat better now, even if many of the TV pundits of modern times are irresponsible blowhards. Also, indeed we have a terribly harsh view of Vietnam (distorted by the people with the loudest voices) yet we learned nothing from it (the war wasn’t wrong on moral or geopolitical grounds, it was just a complete logistical disaster and failure). Cronkite, himself once a witness to a war of greater monstrosities, should have known better to close the debate on Vietnam with deep contempt. I’m not sure if it was due to a lack of trying, but that is exactly where history ended up. You can kick his dead body over it if you want (don’t worry, he won’t feel a thing), but the rest of us are still alive and can make better choices about our fates.