for Johnson to lament that if he had lost Cronkite then he had lost the American people.

The ‘lessons’ described in the story have great merit.

Again, in most of these places the outcomes that matter will depend less on such metrics and more on politics, perception, and emotion. Again, Americans have the disadvantage of being the outsiders and the hazard of becoming targets of those with nationalist sensibilities or anger wrought by collateral damage.

Yet the point that struck me the most was that Cronkite would say anything bad about a democrat’s policy, let alone if that democrat was president. I doubt many republicans were invited to cruise the Potomac on Walter’s yacht.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/lessons-the-tet-offensive-half-century-later-24264

By most strictly military measures, the offensive was a defeat for the communists and a victory for the United States and its allies. Communist forces were unable to hold the cities that they had brazenly attacked, and those forces sustained huge casualties. But the military outcome was not what mattered most, either in the immediate aftermath of the offensive or ultimately. The political, perceptual, and emotional outcomes were what mattered, and they led the history books to view Tet not as a U.S. victory but as a big setback. Read the rest of this entry »