And good riddance. The original “surrendercrat” is dead.

“Walter Cronkite, an iconic CBS News journalist who defined the role of anchorman for a generation of television viewers, died Friday at the age of 92, his family said.

“My father, Walter Cronkite, died,” his son Chip said just before 8 p.m. Eastern. CBS interrupted prime time programming to show an obituary for the man who defined the network’s news division for decades.”

Walter Cronkite along with congress caused us to lose in Vietnam. I have nothing but distain for him, as other veterans of that era. Indeed while he uttered the unqualified words, “We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds” and added that, “we are mired in a stalemate that could only be ended by negotiation, not victory.”

Fact is that the majority of Americans disagreed.

It was not a time for surrender, but to rally for a victory. Real Americans knew that.

UPDATE: Let’s be clear, it’s a historical truth that Tet was a victory of monumental proportions. Had Cronkite told the truth public opinion of the war – high already at that time – would have surged and many feel we would not have left the war unfinished.

John Podhoretz:

“Cronkite was a key figure in many ways, but foremost among them, perhaps, was the fact that he cleared the way for the mainstream media and the Establishment to join what Lionel Trilling called “the adversary culture.” Cronkite, the gravelly voice of accepted American wisdom, whose comportment suggested he kept his money in bonds and would never even have considered exceeding the speed limit, devastated President Lyndon Johnson in the wake of the 1968 Tet Offensive by declaring that the United States “was mired in stalemate” in Vietnam—when Johnson knew that Tet had been a military triumph….

Had there been an Internet in 1968, and military bloggers aplenty, Cronkite’s false conclusion about Tet would have been challenged immediately; we would not have had to wait for Braestrup to publish his enormous book nine years later.

So the passing of Walter Cronkite is a moment to remember an era that has passed, an era toward which we should not experience a moment’s nostalgia.”

Which is why we will never let them get away with it again.

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