'E&P' Editor Blogs at CBS News on the 'Cronkite Moment'

By: E&P Staff In a guest column this week at the new CBS News blog, The Public Eye, E&P Editor Greg Mitchell takes a look at what has come to be known as the "Cronkite Moment" -- when a mainstream media or political figure raises questions about a war or a policy that may produce a dramatic shift in public opinion.

The term was used, most recently, in regard to hawkish Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa) after he suddenly called for a speedy U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. But in his CBS column, Mitchell goes back to the original: When CBS anchor Walter Cronkite in February 1968 called the war in Vietnam a "stalemate" and urged the U.S. to embark on serious negotiations with the enemy. He also examines a few Gallup polls from that period which seem to reveal that the impact on public opinion -- in the immediate aftermath of Cronkite's epiphany -- may have been rather slight.

Read the column.