And That's The Way I Wish It Wasn't!

Walter Cronkite made me want to learn about the world. My parents watched him on a nightly basis because Dad insisted CBS was the only way to go and the other networks used a revolving door to pick their anchors.





Uncle Walter told me about JFK being murdered, taking off his glasses, biting his lower lip, opening his eyes wide to keep a tear from coming, looking at the clock and putting his glasses back on to get back to work. How can you watch that and not know exactly what he was going through? Cronkite looking into the camera and telling us the best we can hope for in Vietnam is a stalemate. The giddiness of the man "Hoo boy!" when his country landed a man on the moon. Calling out Richard Daley and his "buncha thugs" when they beat Dan Rather at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Informing us of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. The death of Bobby Kennedy. The Iran hostage crisis. Gas shortages. Three Mile Island. Whatever it was, Walter Cronkite told me about it. I listened like I listened to nobody else.



The right wing, who never forgave CBS for calling a crook a crook back in Nixon's years, are probably posting their glee on other sites. But seriously, the man was a legend to everyone but the truly nasty. The right also needs to acknowledge the fact that their nemesis, Walter Cronkite, was a major reason their hero, Ronald Reagan, became President. If you remember, Cronkite reminded viewers every goddamned night how many days the hostages had been held in Iran. You wonder why Jimmy Carter lost? Give props to the guy you hate, Nasty McNasty.