Tim Russert looking for his Walter Cronkite moment

Walter Cronkite, for those of you not as old as my Jeep, was the trusted voice of American Journalism in the 1960s and 70s. After the TET offensive in 68' looked into the camera said -

I think that it is time for us to face the facts in Vietnam--that we are in a no-win situation and it is time for us to get out ... We came here with the best of intentions--and we failed.

Thanks for your strategic military assessment General Cronkite, don't mind that we took the best sucker punch Ho Chi Min could throw at us and beat him back. If you never heard that TET was a victory, its not a shock, the media was so anti-war by 68, anything less than Ho walking up to the CBS studio in Manhattan and surrendering would have been seen as a US failure.

Now it seems with Bush's poll numbers low, its time to start throwing dirt on the coffin of the Bush Doctrine. Watching Meet the Press today, one could not help but think that we have lost the war in Iraq, and not just lost, but totally failed. Russert assembled the burial party of David Broder, David Gregory, Eugene Robinson & Judy Woodruff, and they brought their shovels. Where is the balance Tim? Differing views, spirited debate, the free exchange of ideas, naw, we got a war to loose.

Listening to the panel discuss the best face the administration should put on the troop withdrawals that will be coming up 2006 is sickening. No mention of winning, no mention of schools open, hospitals open, oil production coming back on line, free Iraqis, Saddam sitting in jail, Syria pulling out of Lebanon, Libya turning over its nuclear weapons program, nope, just talk of the low-grade civil war that will continue until we pull out. Not only do they want you to think we are loosing, they want you to think we have lost. It's a done deal.

Were is Dan Rather when you need him? If he were still in the anchor chair at CBS, he would be heading to Iraq this week to stand outside the Palestine Hotel in a bullet-proof vest, to tell the nation-

I think that it is time for us to face the facts in Iraq--that we are in a no-win situation and it is time for us to get out ... We came here with the best of intentions--and we failed.