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He's in his late 80s, a little unsteady on the legs and, as he describes it, "as deaf as a damn post." Former "CBS Evening News" anchor Walter Cronkite might be a lion in winter, but during a brief visit to Los Angeles earlier this week he showed that he's still a lion. Cronkite, who retired from the anchor chair in 1980, has had a quarter-century to watch broadcast news from the sidelines, and he doesn't think the current generation of TV journalists is doing a bad job. Corporate broadcast owners, though, are another story, says Cronkite. He believes they...

Monday, Oct. 3, 2005 6:56 a.m. EDT Walter Cronkite: U.S. Too Ignorant to Vote The man once known as the most trusted journalist in America no longer trusts Americans to vote for their own leaders, saying average citizens are just too ignorant to cast their ballots wisely. "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. In quotes picked up by the Los Angeles Times, Cronkite said journalists need to find a way...

Get ready this evening for a real liberal tirade against the Military Industrial Complex. Watch Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes this evening (barf bag needed) Bottom line: Andy is upset programs may be cut like prescription drugs and (oh no, no, no) NPR.

Comedian George Carlin, 67, known for his shockingly obscene monologues got himself in trouble in Las Vegas recently – but not because of his filthy mouth. In the his last performance at the MGM Grand after four years before 700 paying customers, he reportedly said: "People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their f-----g intellect – traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of f-----g moronic. That's why what I'm always getting here is these kind of f-----g people with very limited intellects." But that's not the...

Veteran journalist Helen Thomas brought the grit and whir of a White House press conference to Bartos Theater on Monday evening, speaking with passion about the media's role in a democracy whose leaders seem eager for war. Actually, the 82-year-old former United Press International reporter didn't just speak: she surged into her topic, giving everyone present an immediate sense of the grumpy wit and fierce precision that gave her reporting on American presidents Kennedy through Bush II such a competitive and lasting edge. "I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter," said Thomas, who is now a...

President Bush's decision to nominate Condoleezza Rice received widespread praise from both Democrats and Republicans. But longtime White House Bureau Chief Helen Thomas, now a syndicated columnist with Hearst, had nothing but contempt for Rice's nomination. The feisty 84-year-old reporter who started at the White House during the Kennedy administration had some unkind words to describe Bush and Condi. NewsMax bumped into Thomas in the lobby of New York's Waldorf-Astoria as she waited for a lunch date. Asked about the election result, the sharp-tongued reporter simply put her hand on her face and said, "My God, the man is a...

CRONKITE: KARL ROVE BEHIND BIN LADEN TAPE Sat Oct 30 2004 16:31:19 ET Former CBSNEWS anchorman Walter Cronkite believes Bush adviser Karl Rove is possibly behind the new Bin Laden tape. Cronkite made the startling comments late Friday during an interview on CNN. Cronkite said he is "inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing." Interviewer Larry King did not ask Cronkite to elaborate on the provocative election eve accusation. Developing...

Beware! Do not look upon the Gorgon!The presidential election on Tuesday is one of the most crucial in American history. There are many reasons -- in foreign policy and on the domestic front -- why President George W. Bush should not be reelected. Among them is the dominance of the radical right in his advisory councils, who are taking the United States down the wrong road at the start of the 21st century. The road could lead to more mindless wars abroad and a widening gap between the rich and the poor in this country. There will be only one...

Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that violence in Iraq could be greatly reduced if the U.S. government set a date to withdraw its troops. "The main thing that sustains violence there is the apparent long term presence of U.S. troops," Carter said. Carter was responding to a question posed during the "Conversations at the Carter Center" event, featuring the former president and his wife, Rosalynn. Carter said he would like to see troops withdraw as early as next year if Iraqis show they can establish a self-sustained government. He also said he would be willing to visit Iraq to...

MEDIA MATTERS Helen Thomas defends Rather 'The real issue is why doesn't the president tell us the truth?' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 23, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Helen Thomas Helen Thomas, the so-called "dean of the White House press corps," is not blasting up Dan Rather over his use of unreliable documents about President Bush's military record, but instead is targeting Bush himself. "To me, the real issue is why doesn't the president tell us the truth?" Thomas said Tuesday at a Monmouth University forum on women and journalism in West Long Branch, N.J. "Why doesn't he put...

CARTER'S REMARKS TO THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, BOSTON Mon Jul 26 2004 19:45:57 ET My name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm not running for president. But here's what I will be doing: everything I can to put John Kerry in the White House with John Edwards right there beside him. Twenty-eight years ago I was running for president, and I said then, "I want a government as good and as honest and as decent and as competent and as compassionate as are the American people." I say this again tonight, and that is exactly what we will have next January...

There's something seriously wrong with America when an old fool like Fritz Hollings can be re-elected every six years to the U.S. Senate by South Carolina voters despite his mental lapses, despite his foot-in-mouth problems, despite his senility, despite his lack of sound judgment and grasp on the facts. He should be an embarrassment to South Carolina, because he's certainly an embarrassment to the nation. The latest senior moment for the senior senator from South Carolina came earlier this month when he wrote a column for a newspaper in his state in which he claimed: President Bush acknowledges that Saddam...

This is so typical of Helen that I can't even bear to put her words here. You'll just have to read it there - If you've got a strong enough stomach.

According to Andy Rooney, treating soldiers as brave heroes is an old civilian trick designed to keep the soldiers at it. Andy Rooney used to seem almost wise. I said almost, as long as he stuck to light subjects, such as the problems of mass transit or the residue from old toasters, which sometimes led to sage-like advice that one could file away. Rooney should have got ripe with age, but maybe he’s a little too ripe ... and now the stench is pretty bad. Recently he ridiculed Mel Gibson, and Christians in general, irreverently parodying God speaking to him...

Ted K talks but who ever really listens By Howie Carr Recent Columns by Howie Carr Friday, April 9, 2004 Teddy Kennedy says Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam. Surely he meant to say it was his Chappaquiddick. That's a popular line on the Internet right now, but the larger question is, why is anybody taking Massachusetts' more-conservative senator seriously anymore - other than the Iraqi terrorists who so delight in lifting his slurred lines, that is? Does anyone ever listen to the ragtime Teddy spouts? He can barely speak in complete sentences, he can't keep his numbers straight and whenever...

BROWNSVILLE -- Former President Carter on Thursday called the Bush administration's decision to wage war against Iraq "ill-advised and unnecessary," adding the resulting campaign "has turned out to be a tragedy." The former Democratic president also said Bush's environmental policies are perhaps the worst in the nation's history. Carter made the comments at the Rio R.V. Park after wrapping up a four-day birding trip with his wife, Rosalynn, in the lower Rio Grande Valley. "President Bush's war was ill-advised and unnecessary and based on erroneous statements, and has turned out to be a tragedy," Carter said. "And my prayer has...

WASHINGTON -- If, as Senator Teddy Kennedy rumbled recently, Iraq is President George W. Bush's Vietnam, surely the silver-haired Senator is becoming Mr. Bush's Jane Fonda. Of course Teddy is not as svelte as Miss Fonda, for he has never been an adept of fad diets, and an aerobics regimen could impair his precarious health. Nonetheless, Teddy is becoming the Fonda of our time. Possibly he will fly off to Falluja to be photographed on a burned out Humvee or visit Najaf to confer with the scowling Muslim cleric, the Rev. Muqtada al-Sadr. Having become so historically-minded Teddy goes on...

NEW YORK (AP) — Andy Rooney set the phone and e-mail lines at CBS buzzing over his commentary — in which he said God was speaking through him — calling Mel Gibson and the Rev. Pat Robertson "wackos." CBS said Monday it received its heaviest audience response to a "60 Minutes" report since Rooney's commentaries on the Iraq war last spring. The network wouldn't specify how many calls or e-mails were received. "60 Minutes" spokesman Kevin Tedesco said it was "several times the normal feedback." On Sunday's broadcast, Rooney commented on Robertson's January statement that he believes God has told...

The Denver Post walter cronkite When secrecy protects a lie By Walter Cronkite Sunday, April 04, 2004 - The initial refusal of President Bush to let his national-security adviser appear under oath before the Sept. 11 Commission might have been in keeping with a principle followed by other presidents - the principle being, according to Bush, that calling his advisers to testify under oath is a congressional encroachment on the executive branch's turf. (Never mind that this commission is not a congressional body, but one he created and whose members he handpicked.) But standing on that principle has proved to...