What Iraq needs is a Walter Cronkite

0 Comments | USA TODAY, July, 2005 | by Al Neuharth

President Bush went on the air this week to pretend again that things are OK in Iraq. Shades of President Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam nearly 40 years ago.

The most important similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is that both Democratic and Republican presidents lied to us in wartime. To refresh your memory, here's how we got out of the Vietnam quagmire:

*Walter Cronkite, CBS-TV news anchor known as "the most trusted man in America," after a combat tour of Vietnam in 1968 declared, "There is no way this war can be justified any longer."

*Johnson lamented to aides, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America." He announced he would not run for re-election.

The crucial difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that there is no Cronkite to call Bush's...