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The Anti-Cronkite

Katie Couric, speaking of vapid TV anchors, in Iraq, atoning for CBS’s sins: 

“We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability,” Couric said Tuesday. “I mean, obviously, infrastructure problems abound, but Sunnis and U.S. forces are working together. They banded together because they had a common enemy: al Qaeda.”

Couric traveled to the city of Fallujah in Anbar province, which U.S. forces entered in April 2003 and again in November 2004. That is the same city where, in house-to-house fighting, American forces uncovered nearly two-dozen torture chambers.

“We found numerous houses, also, where people were just chained to a wall for extended periods of time,” U.S. military intelligence officer Major Jim West said back on Nov. 22, 2004.

“The face of Satan was here in Fallujah, and I’m absolutely convinced that that was true,” said Marine Lt. Col. Gareth Brandl.

It is also the city where four American military contractors were set on fire, mutilated and hanged from a bridge by insurgents.

Now Fallujah is “considered a real role model of something working right in Iraq,” Couric said. 

For those too young to have been paying attention at the time, which would include me, Couric’s predecessor Walter Cronkite is credited with turning mainstream America in 1968 when he went out on a limb, bucked convention and declared a quagmire. In the wake of VC and NVA assault forces being routed and destroyed in the Tet Offensive, Cronkite helped the communist leaders achieve their goal. Despair, far from the battlefield. Cronkite made it acceptable to question Vietnam, to accept failure, and ultimately to abandon Vietnam, which at this late date, makes it acceptable to pretend there were no dire consequences for the United States, for millions of Southeast Asians. Couric, best known at CBS for a well-turned ankle, is now bucking convention by daring to say something good is happening there. It would be ironic if TV’s most famously lightweight anchor made it acceptable to think seriously about Iraq, our progress there, our prospects there, the consequences of abandonment there.

More on Couric’s Iraq trip here.  Katie’s getting props for actually attempting to inform herself. I’d give her more for being willing to listen. Take notes, Keith!  The Anchoress yesterday weighed in with another view of Katie’s gadabout here (scroll down to “In Politics,” and thanks, Peregrine John).

Welcome Instapundit, etal! Related, what’s with all the Potemkin journalism? You may also what to check out artlessness mirroring the funhouse reflection of life: Yellow Protestism. 

Topics: Iraq, media

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:12 am on Wednesday, September 5, 2007

12 Responses to “The Anti-Cronkite”

1. Peregrine John Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 10:41 am

   Meh. Yes and no. I am inclined to agree with the Anchoress on this topic (under the In Politics subheading).

2. RebeccaH Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 11:49 am

   Methinks Katie blows with the wind. When she’s back among her cohorts at CBS, no doubt she’ll go back to “they’re only letting me see what they want me to see” mode.

3. The_Real_JeffS Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

   Nice to see her reporting honestly for once, but “vapid” is the key word in your post, Jules. I’m with Rebecca on this one.

4. saltydog Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

   I see the latest bandwagon has a majorette. We’ll see.

   I’d give her the props she seeks, but because of her and her fellows, I’ve become too cynical to see it as anything other than CYA by CBS.

5. rightwingprof Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 1:59 pm

   For those too young to have been paying attention at the time, which would include me

   Groan . . .

6. markthom Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

   Who is this Katie Couric of whom you speak, and what need has anyone of her to tell them things are going well in Iraq?

   CBS News … yes — yes, I remember, there was once such a program. How long ago and how far away it all now seems!

7. Soccer Dad Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

   What i did last summer

   Jules Crittnden gives Katie Couric credit for at least trying to learn about the war in Iraq. He calls her the anti-Cronkite for perhaps building support for the war in Iraq just as her predecessor (three times removed) saw his job as undermining suppo…

8. The Anchoress » Blog Archive » There is an old joke… Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 3:54 pm

   [...] Crittenden, who clearly follows the news more closely than I have been gives Couric fair credit here]The election “season” is still too early and too long and too many of the candidates [...]

9. Gay Patriot Says:
   September 5th, 2007 at 6:56 pm

   Katie Couric Strikes Again in Iraq!

   Jules Crittenden has more developing news on the Couric Awakening trend I spotted this weekend.  Check it out:  The Anti-Cronkite.
   “We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability,” Couri…

10. garys Says:
    September 5th, 2007 at 9:50 pm

    If only anyone actually watched CBS news. Maybe if this story were on a more popular channel like MSNBC.

11. Banjo Says:
    September 6th, 2007 at 9:13 am

    The myth of the Great Walter somehow persists. Katie is not the Anti-Cronkite but the present one in skirts. Based on his pronouncements since leaving the anchor’s chair, Cronkite can best be described as a Moveon.org liberal.

12. DemocracyRules Says:
    September 6th, 2007 at 7:31 pm

    HOW MUCH MILEAGE CAN YOU GET OUT OF A CROOKED JAW? Is it because she has ’something wrong with her face’, that means we HAVE to watch her, because she is a victim? (Of something or other.) How about if we watch news that is accurate, instead of phony contrived content read by a newsreader with an intriguing a handicap?

    In Canada we had a useless separatist politician who had lost a leg from flesh-eating disease. He milked his peg leg for all it was worth, for years, but in the end, we were all relieved when he left the public view.

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