Home of the Mandinmories

USA Today is not part of my web surfing or newspaper reading routine. The only time I ever do read it is when I'm on the road, and even then I generally stick to the sports section. So it came as quite a shock to find this story at Editor & Publisher that McPaper's founder, Al Neuharth, has used the Op-Ed pages of his bright and shiny newspaper to call for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, "Sooner rather than later". He lamented:

"President Bush went on the air this week to pretend again that things are OK
inIraq. Shades of President Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam nearly 40 years ago.
Themost important similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is that both Democratic
andRepublican presidents lied to us in wartime. To refresh your memory, here's
howwe got out of the Vietnam quagmire:

• Walter Cronkite, CBS-TV news anchor known as "the most trusted man in America," after a combat tour of Vietnam in 1968 declared, "There is no way this war can be justified any longer."

• Johnson lamented to aides, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."
  Heannounced he would not run for re-election.

. . . I'm convinced the best way to support our troops in Iraq is to bringthem
home. Sooner rather than later."

This marks what I think is a very significant occasion. For the first time, one of the movers and shakers who controls what we like to call the MSM(mainstream media) has come out and said that it's time to end this wretched exercise in neo-colonialism before it destroys our Armed Forces and tears the country apart.
It seems to have gotten almost no notice; since the talking heads on TV are focused on the resignation of lighten up Sandy baby. Brief as it is, it's awfully strong stuff that pulls no punches in calling Bush a liar. In addition to the passage quoted above, Neuharth also says the following:

Bush tried keeping the wool over our eyes again Tuesday on national TV
byrepeatedly tying Iraq to 9/11. That charge is as phony as his discredited
prewarclaim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

Strong stuff.
Neuharth is a decorated WWII vet. He's never done his country a better service than he's done with this piece.