Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)

"The most trusted man in America," in 1981

Here's a nice obit by Newark Star-Ledger TV critic Alan Sepinwall.

I loved Walter. I don't have that many heroes, but he was one of them. Even after he was forcibly retired from CBS News, his annual presence lent a note of authenticity to the annual Vienna New Year's Concert.

I happened to have a TV tuned to our local Fox station from the evening's earlier Seinfeld rerun, and was shocked that on their noisecast later they turned for personal comment to Fox Noisemaker Chris Wallace, on the ground that as the son of CBS Newsman Mike Wallace he would have grown up around Walter. What little I managed to listen to was relievingly respectful, considering that Chris Wallace's career has been devoted to defecating on the journalistic values of his father and Walter Cronkite.

It was a good life, one well-lived. Thanks, Walter. -- Ken


UPDATE: Thank God Republicans Can't Dance

In case you thought the grieving for national icon Walter Cronkite is universal, you probably don't pay much attention to the Republican Party base that Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, John Ensign, Mike Pence, Eric Cantor, Mark Sanford, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are all fighting over. Turns out the kinds of people who make it possible for Republicans like Catherine Crabill (R-VA) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) to run for office didn't feel comfortable with someone as dedicated to Truth-- and in such an uncomfortably public way-- as Walter Cronkite. Fox is their medium and unadulterated hate is their message:

I hope his sorry carcass rots for the next thousand years and he has to live with the stench of his own body. Most trusted man in America!!?? I spit on his lies and only regret that I'll never get the chance to dance on his grave!!

Wow-- a new Joe the Plumber in the making. Which John McCain figure in conservative politics will validate this one?

I had two comments on my Facebook page about this that I want to share. You may remember the former lead singer of Romeo Void, Debora Iyall. As usual, she didn't mince words:

"That's so ugly it's in the leprous bowels of ugly."

Neither did John Cline:

Funny how that is.

When William F. Buckley died, with few exceptions, the liberal blogs and comment streams were fairly kind, even lamenting the loss of a worthy foe. The vitriol was, as I remember, fairly scattered.

When Walter L. Cronkite died, with almost no exceptions, the conservative blogs and comment streams have been filled with hateful, disrespectful, factually unsound, and apparently frothing-at-the-mouth vitriol. The kind of stuff you would expect to hear at a KKK keg-party after a particularly gratifying lynching.

So what does this mean? That convervatives are rapidly turning into drooling sop-witted brutes with the civility of a pack of hungry mastiffs? Or that liberalism is the last refuge for the civil, the sophisticated, the intelligent, the thoughtful, and the creative?

Perhaps both are true.

-- Howie

AFTERTHOUGHT FROM KEN: THEY DON'T EVEN
KNOW WHAT WALTER'S POLITICS WERE

Wow, that's some scary stuff. It didn't even occur to me that that would be going on. I wonder if poor Chris Wallace just didn't feel free to say what's on his mind -- at least while his father is alive?

I don't suppose there's much point in pointing out to those, er, people that they have no idea what Walter Cronkite's politics were, because he never talked about them and kept them out of his reporting.

Well, I guess they know he wasn't one of them, and that's all they need to know. And they don't believe in "reporting" anyway, at least as it used to be understood, having to do with gathering the facts of a story, since as we know, the facts are biased.

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