My questions should have been...

Is that implied conjecture on your part or explicitly; an After Action Report [AAR] you actually wrote...as a combatant...?

Sorta like Bush giving Tenant “The Medal of Freedom” for exclaiming with emphasis; that the presence of WMD in Iraq was...

”A SLAM DUNK...!”

“We faced NVN regulars almost exclusively after Tet.” ~ZR III

Question...?

Is that implicit or...
Explicit...?

Olde soldier sends...!

“...Cronkite said we lost Tet. That was a lie. The kill ratio was something like 98 to 1. The VC were all but wiped out. We faced NVN regulars almost exclusively after Tet.” ~ZR III

Ragshaft, least you revise an historical moment...

The operations are referred to as the Tet Offensive because they began during the early morning hours of 30 January 1968, Tết Nguyên Đán, the first day of the year on a traditional lunar calendar and the most important Vietnamese holiday. Both North and South Vietnam announced on national radio broadcasts that there would be a two-day cease-fire during the holiday. In Vietnamese, the offensive is called Cuộc Tổng tiến công và nổi dậy ("General Offensive and Uprising"), or Tết Mậu Thân (Tet, year of the monkey).

The communists launched a wave of attacks on the morning of 30 January in the I [One] and II [Two] Corps Tactical Zones of South Vietnam. This early attack did not, however, cause undue alarm or lead to widespread allied defensive measures. When the main communist operation began the next morning, the offensive was countrywide in scope and well coordinated, with more than 80,000 communist troops striking more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns, and the national capital.[7] The offensive was the largest military operation yet conducted by either side up to that point in the war.

The initial attacks stunned allied forces and took them by surprise, but most were quickly contained and beaten back, inflicting massive casualties on communist forces. At Huế intense fighting lasted for a month and the Vietcong executed thousands of residents in the Massacre of Huế. Around the U.S. combat base at Khe Sanh fighting continued for two more months.

Although the offensive was a military defeat for the communists, it had a profound effect on the American administration [read... President Lyndon B. Johnson] and shocked the American public, which had been led to believe by its political and military leaders [read...General William C. Westmorland] that the communists were, due to previous defeats, incapable of launching such a massive effort. ~Wikipedia.org

“...Celebrating the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, in May of 2004, the North Vietnamese General who led his forces to victory said... he was grateful to leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement... 'I would like to thank them,' said Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, [then] 93, 'Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will surely fail...”

“...In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin - who served under Gen. Giap on the general staff of the NVA and received the South's surrender in 1975 - explicitly credited leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement, saying they were
"essential to our strategy."

"Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement," Col. Tin told the Journal. ~ May 1, 2004 on Reuters News Service

President Johnson, was very demoralized and disillusioned and finally after excruciating soul searching and at long last... was completely fed up with “Westy’s” inflated “body counts” of “VC combatants” and appointed General Creighton W. Abrams as his replacement.

Upon his return to the US, President Johnson promoted General Westmorland to Chief of Staff of the US Army.

The rest is history...!

Except that's not what either I or Cronkite suggested

It's what he SAID. Don't blame me if I take the meanings of his words, not the meanings of your kinder re-write of his words. Further, was that the only example, I'd be far less inclined to accept it as exemplary of the man's overall leanings. We both know better. (Drew makes that point well, for example in his first para)

Cronkite's post retirement admission that he intentionally propagandized the Vietnam War by showing night after night of mayhem...

So then those images weren't legitimate news? They should have been kept from the eyes of the American people? Quite a bit of a stretch from that to "info-tainment"...

That said, one can't ignore (and must admire) his disdain for how news rooms migrated from reasonable attempts at "news" to info-tainment. Its a shame his bias did not enable him to see how he participated in setting the whole news as entertainment and advocacy in motion.

We were decisive in ending WW1, and the only slim hope of avoiding another one would have been if the Allies had listened to Wilson's great ambassador Herbert Hoover, and not insisted on a humiliating and backbreaking peace.

Nothing great happened in the 1920s except Louis Armstrong and Babe Ruth. After that, we came through the Depression without succumbing to communism or fascism. And most importantly, we saved the world in WW2.

In other periods (like the Gilded Age or our own), government isn't as much the engine of whatever national greatness we can claim. But in Cronkite's day, they were really the only game in town.

Except that's not what either I or Cronkite suggested. He suggested the timing of the tape's release might have been manipulated. Which does not require Osama's cooperation, merely the cooperation of whoever had possession of the tape.

On both his part and yours.

I agree. Cronkite thought Karl Rove was a very clever guy? That is nuts. Karl Rove burned down the Republican party and ensured that his patron would go down in history as a divisive partisan hack.

Oh, wait, I see: you mean the timing of the particular Bin Laden tape they were referencing. Yeah, because it's not like the Bush White House would ever manipulate intelligence for the sake of its own agenda.

“I’m a little 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.”----Walter Cronkite

(Shake of the head)
'Nuff said.
Let's be careful about lionizing this guy, folks.

Would you feel the same way if Cronkite had been a conservative...

Had he been a conservative and had the network news been 100% conservative, then yes I would have felt the same. People readily recognize the dangers of monopoly power when it's related to business practices, but they (usually) fail to consider the dangers of monopolies in other areas of life. I inherently distrust all monopolies, e.g., labor unions, etc.

Would you feel the same way if Cronkite had been a conservative...