Saturday, July 18, 2009
‘Don't worry, Walter will solve the problem’
The Washington Post marks the death of Walter Cronkite by republishing an old Art Buchwald column. It’s pretty good.
I have only dim memories of the anchorman Cronkite. I vaguely recall as a kid watching CBS News's body-count updates during Vietnam ("921-87. We're winning! Right?") and, of course, the moon-missions coverage. But I'll always remember a Cronkite-narrated documentary, made soon before or after he retired (I think), about the JFK assasination. I used to be a Mark Lane conspiracy-theory junkie. I thought I knew every fact and figure about the assassination: the missing bullet, the entry and exit wounds, the shady New Orleans addresses. Then Walter completely demolished each and ever agrument, persuasively, and I like to think I learned a lesson from him about how there are facts and then there are facts. ... John gets into the mind of Cronkite when he aired his famous Vietnam "stalemate" verdict and concludes "Cronkite didn’t know what he was talking about." John was 7-years-old at the time of Tet. Don't worry, John's an ideologue. He knows everything.
The Washington Post marks the death of Walter Cronkite by republishing an old Art Buchwald column. It’s pretty good.
I have only dim memories of the anchorman Cronkite. I vaguely recall as a kid watching CBS News's body-count updates during Vietnam ("921-87. We're winning! Right?") and, of course, the moon-missions coverage. But I'll always remember a Cronkite-narrated documentary, made soon before or after he retired (I think), about the JFK assasination. I used to be a Mark Lane conspiracy-theory junkie. I thought I knew every fact and figure about the assassination: the missing bullet, the entry and exit wounds, the shady New Orleans addresses. Then Walter completely demolished each and ever agrument, persuasively, and I like to think I learned a lesson from him about how there are facts and then there are facts. ... John gets into the mind of Cronkite when he aired his famous Vietnam "stalemate" verdict and concludes "Cronkite didn’t know what he was talking about." John was 7-years-old at the time of Tet. Don't worry, John's an ideologue. He knows everything.
