AND THAT’S THE WAY IT WASN’T - WALTER CRONKITE
By all accounts, Walter Cronkite was a kindly, almost avuncular figure. Many members of the journalist community have written eulogies of his decency and humility. He had a long, happy marriage. These things should count to us conservatives, who yearn for human life to be more about how it is lived than in the personal politics of each individual. We ought to respect, for example, the genuine marital love that Barack has for Michelle or, for that matter, the love that Jimmy Carter has for Roselyn. If we fail to honor those good aspects of our political opponents, then we run the grave risk of becoming that hideous creation of the Left, homo politicus.
The Left will never, ever give to Jessie Helms, who like Cronkite arose from the world of journalism from the mid-South, the same respect that I give to Cronkite. Helms lived an exemplary life, showing vast and real compassion for mankind. Yet his politics trumped all else, in the eyes of the Left, and so he has been consigned to odium. Ronald Reagan, today, is revered by the Left and his almost transcendent decency acknowledged, but this came only after decades of vile personal attacks and sadistic mockery.
Among those who tormented President Reagan was Walter Cronkite himself, who in May, 1984 said: “Had Mr. Reagan had to pass a verbal aptitude test, I’m afraid his response would put him in remedial English.” Anyone who bothered to know about Ronald Reagan, and the many good books about him showing his manuscript notes on politics, history, and philosophy, would have known that Ronald Reagan studied, thought, and wrote much more seriously than, say, the philandering King Kennedy of Camelot.
But Walter Cronkite, as a journalist, never appeared concerned with truth. Almost all of Washington knew that Kennedy was unfaithful, everyone knew his father was a crooked anti-Semite, and the rumors of Kennedy deals with the mob and the corrupt machines of Daley and West Virginia was notorious – notorious, and almost ignored by the anchor of CBS Evening News. Perhaps that was a better America, in which every personal scandal was not dredged through the tedious news cycle. But much of America looked to Cronkite to be our guardian of truth, and he was most certainly not.
Unlike NBC News, which Huntley, a relative conservative, and Brinkley, a genuinely honorable Leftist, or ABC News, which had a truly thoughtful Howard K. Smith, whose commentaries were provocative, CBS News was as completely predictable as the rising sun. Those of us who can recall the only three broadcast media sources – the three networks – saw only the Left, but at CBS News there was hardly the pretense of any other viewpoint.
Moreover, CBS produced documentaries during Cronkite’s prestigious years at CBS News which were as mendacious as anything seen in the Leftist media today. This bias manifested in outright lying on many issues. The infamous CBS documentary “The Selling of the Pentagon” for example, had an Assistant Secretary of Defense’s answers to several questions edited and replaced as answers to other totally unrelated questions. That network’s award winning “Hunger in America” began with a solemn announcement from a hospital that “This child has just died of hunger,” when nutrition had nothing to do with the infant’s death.
The ABC documentary, “Arms and Security: How Much is Enough?” - broadcast a few days before the 1972 Presidential Election - was filled with gross errors. The program announced as fact that 60% of the federal budget was alleged to be spent on defense, when the actual percentage was 38%. The need for a supersonic bomber was dismissed because the B-52 was already supersonic - which it was not. The documentary was filled with other errors that revealed either no research at all, or a deliberate bias to understate the need for a strong national defense. ABC News was a competitor of CBS News. This corporate rival had just lied to the American people. What did Cronkite do to protect us from the corrupt practices of a corporate rival? He took great umbrage when corporations in other parts of the private sector appeared to collude, but ignoring the egregious sins of his company’s competitors did not bother him at all.
Richard Nixon was a corrupt president whose resignation was needed by our nation. Walter Cronkite certainly thought so. Presidents should not lie to the American people. Cronkite was joined by a number of conservative journalists and, famously, by principled Republicans like Barry Goldwater. Bill Clinton also lied to the American people. He looked us dead in the eye and lied to us. He lied under oath. He lied to his cabinet (unless Slick Willie was lying about that as well), but Cronkite, conspicuously, defended this particular president who lied to the American people.
Does this matter? Yes: Cronkite was anointed and tacitly accepted the title of “the most trusted man in America.” His demeanor, his voice, his professional appearance all bespoke that honor. Yet when corporations, like CBS and ABC, lied to us, Cronkite was silent. When presidents, like Kennedy and Clinton, deceived us, Cronkite said nothing at all. When men, like Goldwater and Reagan, spoke – in that goofy phrase of the Left “truth to power” – Cronkite dismissed their message and demeaned their very real courage.
I will not judge and cannot know whether Walter Cronkite was simply hopelessly myopic, woefully ignorant, or what Eric Hoffer would have called a “true believer.” Nor will I descend to the Leftist sickness of ad hominem destruction of men whose personal lives merit respect. But, sadly, for a generation of Americans searching for answers, when the most trusted man in America said “and that’s the way it is,” it wasn’t – at all.
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Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.
DakotaBeacon