Loose Coins: Nation polarized: liberals mystified

It's just bizarre the way that this has happened to our country. I mean, who can tell what reasons there may be for it? It certainly isn't a fire stoked by truckloads of moonbat rhetoric, no sir! Not in any way. That's a very partisan conclusion, because if anything like that is happening, it's happening on both sides. That's right! There's no way one side of the spectrum could be more guilty than the other. It's a fact.

Oh - by the way, the eminent icon of unbiased journalistic integrity (who singlehandedly lost the Vietnam war by declaring it unwinnable after the we kicked NV ass all over the country) asserted this tempered and reasonable opinion of the bin Laden tape on Larry King Live -

CRONKITE: What we just heard. So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.

Update: Ace sez: "You know, it's sorta funny, isn't it, that Saddam Hussein and OBL could never work together because they disagreed on a few minor points over the proper way to kill Christians, Jews, and problematic Muslims, and yet Rove and bin Ladin seem to get on so swimmingly."

This transcript is solid platinum. It almost makes me forget why I don't watch Larry King Live.

KING: We're back with Walter Cronkite. Why has this campaign -- and you've been through a lot of them -- been so vituperative?

CRONKITE: I think partly because of the nature of the administration.

"And the fact that Bush eats homeless kittens."

CRONKITE: Who's to blame for it really is the intensity of this campaign. Plus the fact that we have a preface to this in the last campaign. What year was that now?

KING: 2000.

CRONKITE: 2000. Thank you very much.

Solid platinum with a set of non-stick cookware thrown in. I can't top that.

KING: Will Ralph Nader be a factor?

CRONKITE: He certainly could be. He was very serious factor with 3 percent of the vote, not quite 3 percent of the vote in 19...

KING: 2000.

CRONKITE: 2000, that is.

My God... Walter topped it.

CRONKITE: Indeed. Indeed. And the thing that in bringing this threat to us, there is almost, in the fact that [bin Laden] dressed well, that he looked well, he was clean shaven, nearly clean shaven as those folks get. It seemed almost, to me, that he wanted to enter into negotiations, that he was really up -- he wants to move into a leadership role in international affairs instead of the role of a brigand.

"In fact, I thought that Osama was looking downright respectable. You know, for one of those folks I mean."

KING: He sure is. Is Iraq the central issue in this campaign?

CRONKITE: I feel it is. I feel it is. We do know that the economy is very important. Unemployment very important to a lot of people. And a lot -- and besides unemployment, there are a lot of people who are poorly paid in the United States today. We've got a poverty list, which is we forget about the percentage of poverty, families in the United States. It's quite shameful. They're to be considered as well.

If the current rate is "shameful", what were the rates in the 90's?

KING: Do you expect a huge [election] turnout?

CRONKITE: What?

KING: A huge turnout?

CRONKITE: Oh, yes, I do. I think so. The only thing that could damage the turnout would be the threats that might be implied, as many of the new registrees are challenged as to their various things. Their spelling of their name and the state where they really come from, whether they're immigrants or not, do they have passports, all that kind of thing. If they are challenged at the polls, as they line up to go into the polls, they may fear having to answer all those questions. Particularly if they do have anything wrong about them and shouldn't vote.

People who shouldn't vote might be impeded from going to the polls anyway? The next thing you know, this fascist state might start putting criminals in jail - we're that close to having it happen, folks! Right before our eyes if we don't act now!

But get a load of this name-dropping binge -

KING: A couple of other things. We're all in that zipper club. Have you spoken to president Clinton? You had the surgery.

CRONKITE: I spoke to him shortly after he had his operation, yes.

KING: And what did he say?

CRONKITE: Well, we talked about operations. I'd had one, a quadruple bypass.

KING: You and I have the same doctor.

CRONKITE: Yes, right. So I was giving him my medical advice.

KING: Dr. Wayne Eisam (ph). He's the best.

CRONKITE: That wasn't his surgeon.

KING: No, that wasn't his doctor. They were trying to get Wayne. He was out of town or something.

CRONKITE: Is that what happened? I mentioned it, and he kind of passed over it. But Wayne is an amazing doctor.

KING: Amazing.

"You, me, and Billy C; we're that happy, hip zipper club." So is that how it works? When a president gets put out to pasture, you have to start hanging out with the most sycophantic journalists from your term? Sort of a reward I guess; they and their protoges keep the scrutiny of the nation as far from you as it can plausibly get (or farther), and you have to sit around kvetching about health in their twilight years. A term in the White House is starting to sound more like a punishment. I'm feeling a rare moment of sympathy for Clinton.