Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah is a man without morals or scruples (as his and his website's continual lies about Barack Obama amply demonstrate), so it's not suprirising to see Farah use the occasion of Walter Cronkite's death to smear the man.
In a July 18 WorldNetDaily article, Farah besmirches Cronkite -- who had died just over 24 hours before -- as someone beholden to a "radical agenda" and maliciously portrays him as a subversive liberal plant.
Farah bizarrely asserts that Cronkite's "press accomplishments were noticeably meager" prior to his elevation to CBS evening news anchor in 1962 -- even though Farah goes on to note that Cronkite had been in journalism for more than 20 years prior, working for both the United Press and CBS. Farah does not explain why 23 years in journalism, including covering World War II, is a "noticeably meager" credential for becoming a news anchor.
Farah goes on to selective edit Cronkite's resume, suggesting that all Cronkite did at CBS before becoming news anchor was serve as the host of "You Are There" and a morning show "where he was paired with a partner: a puppet named Charlemagne." In fact, Cronkite anchored CBS' political convention coverage starting in 1952 and interviewed numerous politicians.
(Oh, and Farah gets the date wrong that Cronkite took over the ahcnor's chair -- it was in 1962, not 1961.)
Farah also recounted the story, as published in "the Nation, a Marxist-oriented journal," of how Cronkite was offered the anchor job due to the prodding of former Nation editor Blair Clark -- or, as Farah put it, "thanks to prodding from a socialist activist who edited The Nation."
Farah then asserts: "Just a few years later, his commentaries on the Vietnam War were credited with turning the tide of American opinion against that conflict." In fact, there apparently was only one timethat Cronkite voiced his opinion while serving as a news anchor: a 1968 commentary that Farah writesas being "credited with swinging the tide of opinion against the [Vietnam] war."
Farah goes on to claim that "After leaving his position with CBS, Cronkite's political activism and offbeat ideas had no restraints." Farah seems to think that any political view that doesn't agree with his far-right take is "offbeat" and "radical"; the views Farah attributes to Cronkite -- support of liberalism, opposition to unilateral military action, a stronger United Nations -- are hardly "offbeat."
Such malicious smears can only be done by a man without morals or scruples. And Joseph Farah is such a man.
