I was far from a news junkie in those days but I kept up with things and the channel we got best, no cable in those days, was the CBS station in Savannah, so we got Cronkite’s version of the news. I don’t know what he meant to convey or why but I assure you that what he did convey was that US troops had been embarrassed and defeated by the Viet Cong in the Tet Offensive. Looking back, virtually ALL of the reporting from Vietnam was desceptive or uninformed, I believe desceptive. First, the military was less than truthful always trying to bolster its own reputation and second, since the military wasn’t always truthful, the press treated them like they were always lying. I don’t thing many Americans had any idea that especially after Tet we were facing front line North Vietnamese infantry and armor using up to date Soviet and Chinese equipment and often with Soviet “advisors.” The US media kept up the story that the enemy was a pajama-clad peasant with an old WWII rifle. They kept that up until the pictures of the tanks crashing through the gates in Saigon couldn’t be suppressed, but by then nobody cared because the US war and the draft were over.

However, there was a distinct difference in leadership in those two eras.

Without a doubt, Bush received as much if not more criticism from the Left – not only by a complicit media, but by treacherous Democrat politicians.

If you go back to the early years of Vietnam, during the Kennedy Administration, the American people were led to believe that the Viet Cong would be defeated in a matter of months.

In that context, while Tet 1968 was an enormous defeat militarily for the VC, it was a moral victory in the sense that it demonstrated that the Communists could overrun and hold major South Vietnamese cities for long periods of time. This is what the American public then realized: that the war was going to be long and drawn out and not the quick victory predicted in the early years. What Americans were led to believe in 1962 was not even close to reality six years later.

I would highly recommend Neil Sheehan’s A Bright, Shining Lie. He was reporting from the ground during the Kennedy years and had as his cohorts, people such as David Halberstam and Daniel Ellsberg, years before they became household names.

American leadership during Vietnam demonstrated an abject failure to understand just who we were up against.

When’s Connie Mack up?
Exactly, I mean.
Down to the hour.

Compare him with G.W. Bush – who probably had even more resistance against the Iraq War from elected officials on the Left. Yet he never wavered. I hold fast to my belief that Bush’s likeness will someday grace Iraqi postage stamps.

As for conservative opposition during Vietnam: at that time it was becoming harder and harder to be in favor of the war, specifically because of the way it was being conducted.

But. If it was Iraq and the troops won a major battle and secured an oil field, yet the the press led with the story of how children in Iraq were being killed. The successes of our troops were put on the backpage.

Say that went on for years. Every piece of bad news was highlighted. Every piece of good news was suppressed.

Say that led to retreat, humiliation sacrificed blood for nothing, dishonor, weakneded American prestige….

…which would have occurred if the POTUS election was 2006 instead of 2008.

And a man who claims such fidelity to words should know that I said “borderline” trreason.

YES THAT IS BORDERLINE TREASON. A press working against its own country. And Conkrite was the American Godfather.

Are you serious Dave?

I was alive though in grade school at the time. I agree in the part where a lot of history and fond moments of achievement were shared with Uncle Joe…er..Walter…but his contempt for Republicans and his antipathy if not out right hostility for the war and those who fought it were palpable.

It’s true that he was the best wee had…but that’s hardly an endorsement or anything to hang your hat on considering the competition but I can still remember the love fest for Chairman Mao on CBS news and the pro Ho Chi Min orgies. I was a born again liberal till I was in my late twenties because of him and the way he and CBS news glorified the hippie movement!

Uncle Joe…er…Walter was red to his core and his love affair with Slick Willy after he finally stepped down was the nail in his coffin as far as any respect I had left for him!

I do

I’m glad you aren’t endorsing the treason allegation as that would require venal intent and/or lying.

And you keep insisting on “lying”. You don’t need to lie to betray your country.

Of all the hot talk around during Iraq, did people demand proof of “lying” to detemine the media was complicit with the liberal agenda.

It starts with world view. That’s not a lie. To a iberal at reporter the time America was imperialistic. The VC were just poor farmers fighting for there home.
It continues with assumptions. It continues with a willingness to believe facts they want to believe and to deny inconvenient truths. It manifests itself in the language they use, how they color the news, their baody language.

I dont need to prove lies to know that the liberal meida bias at the time stole a hard fought victory from our troops. To know, they encouraged the counter-culture. To know, that they demoralized American troops and inspired the VC. To know, blood is on their hands and they are resonsible for the loss of American prestige.

Maybe because it was so long ago, people are willing to excuse their behavior, but what they did was just as bad if not worse than what the mainstream press did during Iraq.

I hope thirty years from now, conservatives dont just go “Rather was an honest reporter, he just go bad facts” or “Couric was wrong, buta lot of people were wrong”

I wont go there.

Robert MacNamara’s book, In Retrospect stated that the Johnson Administration saw the war in Vietnam as not winnable at least a year earlier than Tet 1968.

I doubt very much that Johnson fell victim to anything Cronkite said.

The decision to negotiate with an enemy in the absence of an unconditional surrender is what led to the undoing of the war.

Nothing Cronkite said can even approach the actions of LBJ.

“America’s most trusted voice” – nice marketing, but then again tailfins on cadillacs were only considered the cats pajamas.