If Walter Cronkite Still Did the CBS Evening News…

He’d probably say the following about Iraq. (It’s remarkable, by the way, how little of the original commentary needed to be altered.)

Who won and who lost in the great surge? I’m not sure. Al Qaeda did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected.

On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Iraqi government can cope with its problems. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won’t show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Iraq and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Iraq is to end in a stalemate.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.

This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.

The saddest part is that Cronkite gave his famous commentary seven years before the Vietnam War was actually brought to a close.