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Walter Cronkite: U.S. Too Ignorant to Vote
newsmax.com ^ | Monday, Oct. 3, 2005 6:56 a.m. EDT

Posted on 10/03/2005 5:06:51 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch

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To: InvisibleChurch

What he means is quite simple:

"When I was the most trusted man in news presentation, you all believed what I said, and would vote pretty much in lockstep with what I wanted. When I wanted us out of Viet Nam, I told you that the war was unwinable, even though the military HAD won the Tet Offensive.

You people seem to have gotten this mistaken opinion that you're smart enough to guide your own lives. How dare you! Those damn right wing bloggers and internet sites have given you the mistaken impression that you are smart enough to govern yourselves. Don't you know that you must subordinate yourselves to those of us who know "better?" We are the ones who presented you with the only news you needed to make the correct decisions. Since you've abandoned us, you are no longer getting to correct information neede to make the right decisions.

How dare you!"

Mark


141 posted on 10/03/2005 8:19:18 AM PDT by MarkL (I didn't get to where I am today by worrying about what I'd feel like tomorrow!)
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To: InvisibleChurch

The only problem Cronkite has is that the voters are moving right-ward and electing his fellow leftists to office.


142 posted on 10/03/2005 8:22:50 AM PDT by desherwood7
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To: Steve_Seattle

Walter Cronkite and the Media Lost the US the Vietnam War

CBS' Walter Cronkite, appeared for a standup piece with distant fires as a backdrop. Donning helmet, Cronkite declared the war lost. It was this now famous television news piece that persuaded President Johnson six weeks later, on March 31, not to run. His ratings had plummeted from 80 percent when he assumed the presidency upon Kennedy's death to 30 percent after Tet. His handling of the war dropped to 20 percent, his credibility shot to pieces.
 
Even Giap admitted in his memoirs that news media reporting of the war and the anti-war demonstrations that ensued in America surprised him. Instead of negotiating what he called a conditional surrender, Giap said they would now go the limit because America's resolve was weakening and the possibility of complete victory was within Hanoi's grasp.

143 posted on 10/03/2005 8:32:47 AM PDT by Wolverine (A Concerned Citizen)
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To: InvisibleChurch
"If we fail at that," Cronkite warned, "our democracy, our republic, I think, is in serious danger."

What is in serious danger here is the political power of the liberal left, and it is this danger which Cronkite is reacting to.

I have pondered often why the liberals have to constantly tell themselves how intelligent they are, or conversely how dumb we are. I was re-reading THE TERRITORIAL IMPERATIVE, by Robert Ardrey the other night, and came upon what I believe might be the answer. Ardrey restates and reduces Maslow's hierarchy of needs to three. IDENTITY, TERRITORY, AND STIMULATION. Though Ardrey's book was about the role our penchant for possessing and protecting territory plays in the development of our evolutionary psyche, he clearly states that IDENTITY trumps the security and territorial needs, as well as those of stimulation, every time.

The very IDENTITY of liberals is threatened any time their vaunted intellectual superiority is even questioned, let alone summarily REFUTED BY EVENTS, as has been occuring on a regular basis in recent years, beginning with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, and continuing through the many election losses since then.

Not only do liberals have to lie, they have to believe the lies which prop up their underlying ideology, and thus, forms the core of their very identity. As we can see, they will readily give up TERRITORY (this can encompass not only terrain, but intellectual property, not to mention money), in order to maintain their identity.

Proof? In the face of drop-dead certain additional profits which could be garnered by adopting the Fox News template, and moving more toward sanity in reporting the news, the main-stream media eschews the acquisition of territory (viewers/money), in order to fervently seek the maintenance of their belief in their own ideological superiority. The entire liberal house of cards is being propped up right now by the ability of the main stream media to purvey the lies they require, and this ability is waning proportianately to the loss of credibility the exposure of these lies produces.

That's the danger that Cronkite senses, even though even he, like most liberals, is completely oblivious as to why they should see danger in the offing.

144 posted on 10/03/2005 8:35:01 AM PDT by wayoverontheright ("RICH" = OUR NATION'S EMPLOYERS AND INVESTORS.)
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To: InvisibleChurch
"We [as a nation] are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders,"

Cronkite is absolutely correct.

Witness the elections of Bill Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Shiela Jackson Lee, Marion Barry, Cynthia McKinney, John Edwards, John Kerry, and Teddy Kennedy.... and on and on the list goes. Clearly, there must be some kind of basic civics test administered to all who want to vote. Now, who would be more likely to support such a proposal, the Republicans or the Democrats?

Case closed.

145 posted on 10/03/2005 8:41:09 AM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: Jeff Head

Walter is correct when he says the MSM need to put out more real news and cut out all the entertainment fluff. I mean how can the Monday morning news program be devoted to a recap of "Dangerous Housewives" etc. The networks need to take the "entertainment" out of their news programs or the people will find another source for news.


146 posted on 10/03/2005 8:43:17 AM PDT by Nakota
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To: InvisibleChurch

Uncle Walter has become the crazy uncle you want to keep in the attic when friends come over.

What he means by these comments is that Americans must be uneducated--because we aren't voting the way he wants.


147 posted on 10/03/2005 8:58:50 AM PDT by wildbill
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To: cynicom

Nonetheless, what I said is true. Reporter in WWII, whether you remember it or not.


148 posted on 10/03/2005 8:58:58 AM PDT by ClaireSolt (.)
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To: InvisibleChurch

Walter "The most trusted socialist in America" Cronkite has never read an intro text on Macroeconomics.


I wonder how much of his coverage was as tainted as his current diatribes.


149 posted on 10/03/2005 9:01:10 AM PDT by TexanToTheCore (Rock the pews, Baby)
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To: InvisibleChurch

That John Kerry received as many votes as he did proves the senile bastich right.


150 posted on 10/03/2005 9:03:10 AM PDT by Rightwing Conspiratr1 (Lock-n-load!)
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To: InvisibleChurch
"We [as a nation] are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders," CBS News legend Walter Cronkite told the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication last week.

Which is an ironic thing for Wally to say since most of us went to the public schools that were created by people like him.

151 posted on 10/03/2005 9:05:31 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Neoliberalnot

"I think Walt is suggesting we return to domination by either the British Empire or his new and improved UN Empire with that genius Coffee Anus at the helm--which is it?"

His real agenda is probably the old Liberal agenda that goes back to the nineteenth century, that is, to manage man scientifically, with all ofthe decision making power in the hands of technocrats.

The Eu is a good example of this and it isn't working out very well.

By the way, Walter's time in the saddle in journalism came during a time when not a lot of people had college degrees and they were highly respected, even if they were journalism degrees.

Walter hasn't figured out that a large part of the country has a level of education than him. Just can't seem to handle change.


152 posted on 10/03/2005 9:07:23 AM PDT by TexanToTheCore (Rock the pews, Baby)
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To: CDHart

Agreed. I work, and have worked, with many folks that get their news from The Today Show and then have it reaffirmed for them when they go to bed and watch The Leno Show.

The Truth is the first casualty in every war -- and we have been at war with the left for 3 decades. The MSM is in the pocket of the liberal machine, and until such a time that conservatives control the media, conservatives, no matter who they elect, are ultimately screwed.


153 posted on 10/03/2005 9:07:52 AM PDT by Bear_Slayer
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To: TexanToTheCore

Correction:

Has a higher level of education than him.


154 posted on 10/03/2005 9:12:08 AM PDT by TexanToTheCore (Rock the pews, Baby)
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To: InvisibleChurch
Just for fun, let's run with Walter's comment and say he's right.

How is it, do you suppose, that the average citizen is left so ignorant of what's going on?

It couldn't possibly be that Walter's sainted MSM news organizations are full of agenda-driven imbeciles, could it?

155 posted on 10/03/2005 9:14:16 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: Jeff Head
Krankheit.....


Gesundheit!
156 posted on 10/03/2005 9:15:14 AM PDT by BIGLOOK (I once opposed keelhauling but recently have come to my senses.)
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To: InvisibleChurch

Ah yes, the communist mantra unveiled (Again) - save the ignorant masses from themselves...


157 posted on 10/03/2005 9:18:09 AM PDT by BlueNgold (Feed the Tree .....)
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To: 2001convSVT; mrmargaritaville

I would prefer that "voters" satisfied a few more requirements:

VOTERS should:
- be legal CITIZENS.
- be a net PAYER of taxes, not net consumer of taxes.
- be able to speak ENGLISH and vote on an ENGLISH ballot.
- NOT be "civil servants" at ANY level of Government.
(Military excluded, of course - and retain the vote)
- NOT reside on an Indian Reservation....
- NOT reside in a prison.
- NOT reside in a mental health facility.
- NOT reside in a Drug Rehabilatation facility.
- NOT reside in "Public Housing".
- Never have marched with a black hood over their head.
- Never have committed a sexual crime against children or animals.
- Never have admired Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Joe Stalin or Mohammad.
- Open for modification as the mood strikes me!

If implemented - the above would exclude from the vote, approximatly 80% of the Democrat base.

< /sarcasm>

I've always considered Cronkite as a lying, socialist, dangerous sonuvabitch who did more harm to America and Freedom loving South Vietnamese than 10 Divisions of Communists in Vietnam...

I REALLY resent the sonuvabitch survived, and continues to spew his bullshit and lives well...

The sorry bastard should have been fed to the worms a LONG time ago....

Semper Fi


158 posted on 10/03/2005 9:22:26 AM PDT by river rat (You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
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To: ClaireSolt

"Reporter in WWII, whether you remember it or not."

He probably was a reporter in WWII. I think that some of us are confusing him with Walter Winchell who was "The Reporter for WWII".

He was probably a minor reporter in the trenches or on board ship. He would have been too young to compete with Walter Winchell.


159 posted on 10/03/2005 9:27:38 AM PDT by TexanToTheCore (Rock the pews, Baby)
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To: E.G.C.

Right.


160 posted on 10/03/2005 9:44:10 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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