I’m not going to excerpt articles about what has come to be called the “Cronkite moment” when he ended a long broadcast on his CBS News show concluding that it was time to get out of Vietnam (one minute video) because most of you already know about it.
The HUFFPOST article “Carl Bernstein Brands Trump As ‘War Criminal’ For Capitol Riot And Pandemic Deaths: The veteran journalist accused the former president of “fomenting a coup” and called his mishandling of the pandemic “homicidal negligence” caught my eye this morning.
The last sentence, emphasized below, struck me as kind of hilarious in a absurdist kind of way:
“It’s not just about impeachable offenses. It’s about a different kind of crime in which the humanity of the people of the United States was relegated to the floor by the president of the United States, who uplifted only his own narrow political, financial and personal interests above that of our people, of our country, of our Constitution,” Bernstein said.
Trump could not immediately be reached for comment.
I mean, give us readers a break. In what alternate universe would Donald Trump respond to a question coming from HUFFPOST about something Carl Bernstein said?
While the extent that Cronkite’s “moment” led President Johnson not to run for reelection may be debated, America has no national influencer across party lines who can have the impact that he did. When I try to think of someone the fact that Oprah Winfrey, LeBron James, and Katy Perry are the only people who immediately come to mind is a sad commentary. An article in Billboard lists some of the other influential celebrities.
There is simply no American known for telling the absolute unbiased truth who is able to succeed in swaying a significant number of Americans to change their deeply held beliefs.
I can't think of anybody, can you?