As you noted with MLK, the most subversive and challenging calls of our icons will always be whitewashed and forgotten, leaving the most non-threatening aspects to be celebrated.

Mother's Day, for example, started out as an anti-war protest, with our nation's women declaring their refusal to send any more of their husbands and sons off to die. ( http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=304 ). That's been forgotten.

Walter Cronkite, for his part, spent the last decades of his life lobbying for Dennis Kucinich's proposal of a "Department of Peace" (http://www.thepeacealliance.org/content/view/170/465/ ) '' and railing against the corrupted, bought-off state of our current American democracy ("The ruling class is the rich, who really command our industry, our commerce and our finance,'' Mr. Cronkite says. ''And those people are so able to manipulate our democracy that they really control the democracy.'' -- NYT, 4/18/05). See how quickly Cronkite's media mourners forget all that... if they ever even noticed it in the first place.

And someday, Glenn Greenwald, when you die, you'll be celebrated posthumously as a guy whose blog had a really awesome font and made excellent use of the color tan.

It's just the way things go.

Patrick Meighan

Culver City, CA

The Tet Offensive was the turning point in the war that led to the US withdrawal of its forces from Vietnam. In that sense, Tet was a huge victory for North Vietnam.

Not all wars are won by the number of soldiers killed or cities bombed. The NVA and VC suffered huge losses on the battlefields but the fact that nobody on our side thought the enemy was capable of such a large military strike on so many areas at once was possible contributed to a loss of confidence in our military stategy in Vietnam.

In the Tet aftermath, General Westmoreland saw an opportunity to seize the initiative and asked for 200,000 more troops, but for many Americans both the offensive and the request discredited claims that the war could be won soon or at an acceptable cost.

Westmoreland's defenders blamed media coverage for turning public opinion against the war, but in fact the press generally accepted the official interpretation of Tet as a major military defeat for the Communists. It was evident nonetheless that the United States could not control the war's scope and duration. President Lyndon B. Johnson sought the advice of civilians, announced he would not seek nomination for another term, declared a bombing halt over most of North Vietnam, and called for peace talks, which opened in May 1968. The Tet offensive thus caused the United States to move away from expanding involvement and to move towards eventual withdrawal.

Suggesting that Cronkite had responsibilty for our lack of victory in Vietnam is to give credit to the US military excuses for the loss. Factually, that just does not wash.

In fact, the US did strike a knockout blow on the military field. The Viet Cong were never again a factor on the battlefield, so decimated were their ranks. And the North reeled from the absolute drubbing they received on the battlefield in February 1968.

Yep.

NVA general Vo Nguyen Giap admits as much. But, he added, they won a propaganda victory in Tet, aided in large measure by Walter Cronkite.

Yep

Glenn Greenwald (if he had any influence beyond this very small venue) would be another Cronkite if he had his way, wishing victory to our enemies and denying the obvious.

Nope.

Do you believe that Cronkite should have ignored the fact that Tet exposed the fact that our government, and its military leadership, had been lying about the progress being made in Vietnam and been lying about it for a long time? That's what Tet did, you know. The mere fact that the NVA and their VC allies were able to mount the attack in the first place was what convinced the American people that the war was a waste of time, money and lives. Cronkite merely reported the facts as he saw them and, as history has shown, he was right smack dab on the money.

Keep living in your dream world if it makes you feel better.

Is like following an excellent meal with an ice cream dish full of maggots swimming in bird poo.

By the way...

The US lost 58,193 (approx) of our soldiers, sailors and airmen in the Vietnam War.

Of these, 19,560 were lost prior to Tet and 38,633 were lost after we "decimated" the enemy during our Tet counter offensive.

That certainly doesn't indicate, to me at least, that we destroyed the NVA's capability to fight. Why do you believe they were defeated?

... it is a gem.

Sorry to learn of the passing of Walter Cronkite before he could be interviewed by Rachel Maddow. I have my own memories, too, which include the safe return of Apollo 13; somebody's calling Cronkite "Old Iron-Butt" for his legendary staying power on election nights; and the abiding sense as a young kid that the news was "true" when Cronkite was reporting it.

But with the events of the last week, my thoughts didn't turn to comparisons to the "giants" -- to use a term facetiously and with disdain -- of our MSM such as Gregory, Williams (Joe Klein? Brian Ross?). I instead can't help thinking of what should be, but doesn't appear to be, getting recognized as the institutional crashing and burning of Chuck Todd and his mentality right here at this site.

The first comment I see here referring to Chuck Todd, from Kitt a while back, rightly juxtaposed Cronkite's observations with this Todd argument with Glenn in their interview:

Todd: "Then you have the realistic view of how this town works, and what would happen, and is it good for our reputation around the world if we're essentially putting on trial the previous administration? We would look at another country doing that, and say, geez, boy, this is..."

I've been ruminating on that quote for a couple of days and it strikes me as being even more obtusely subservient of the Beltway Personages than it even first appears. Todd's comment reflects an apparent conviction/belief not only that the Washington Elite would not want to engage in trials enforcing the Rule of Law against other members of the Washington Elite, but a presumption that this perception actually reflects a larger "position" of the Government of the United States, writ large, such that the United States Government would not advocate taking positions like challenging a former government's personnel because to do so would be inconsistent with international standing and integrity.

So, if that's Todd's understanding of the "lay of the land" -- that the United States of America would not be benefitted within the international community by holding lawless former leaders accountable -- what might Todd do with this published pronouncement of the President of the United States upon the occasion of the newly-constituted Yugoslavian government rendering up Milosevic to the Hague for trial as a war criminal:

"The transfer of Milosevic to the Hague is an unequivocal message to those persons who brought such tragedy and brutality to the Balkans that they will be held accountable for their crimes. Milosevic’s transfer further signals the commitment of the new leadership in Belgrade to turn Yugoslavia away from its tragic past and toward a brighter future as a full member of the community of European democracies."

Yes, those were the official words of President George W. Bush in 2001, they were published on the website of the White House throughout the Presidency of George W. Bush. THOSE words reflect the official policy of the United States Government. Who was Todd alluding to in suggesting the policy of the United States has ever been, or should be, otherwise? The answer to that is, he was referring only to what the individuals implicated in the actions would now want to see, not what the United States Government has articulated as an official policy.

This, it seems to me, is a basic problem underlying the "Beltway Mentality" of Todd and his ilk, of the "we'll be a friendly forum" subservience of Gregory, "letting Cheney control the message" of Russert. They presume to be reoprting upon and representing the views of "the United States Government" but that's the last thing they're interested in doing. If they were interested in reporting on the positions of the United States Government, we would hear about the constitutionality or legality of things, not whether Krauthammer thinks the law regarding torture can be ignored if you have "good motives" or Cheney suggests "the torture worked". Todd's mission, as reflected in the comment above, is no more than to protect the individuals within the Beltway who he thinks provide him with "important access", not to report on matters that might reflect poorly on those individuals and thereby diminish his own "access" and "importance" -- but it is important to clothe that mission in a false presumption that by doing only this, he is somehow advancing the cause of the United States and its principles.

The "principles" of the United States are pretty clearly stated, and there's nothing about the principles of the United States that support any suggestion that our government would object to another government holding its officers accountable for violating the law (just to write that out as a proposition is pretty breathtaking), and for Todd so glibly to suggest otherwise, as if it were a given, is a complete confirmation that his perception of the "Government of the United States" is wholly subsumed by his relationship to his personal "contacts" within the Beltway.

And I don't think Mr. Cronkite would have approved. Mr. Todd is the embodiment of the little snippet from 1975 that has just been posted. Thank you.