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(Gen. Zia - Tea and Kleenex - there's a message here)

When this interview was conducted on May 18, 1980, Afghanistan was under Soviet occupation a little over six months. There was also the matter of fifty American hostages in Tehran and the U.S. elections heating up. Zia headed up a military coup that overthrew the legitimate elected government of Ali Bhutto and after staging a rather dubious trial, executed him, much to the shock and horror of the rest of the world. Zia would later die in a helicopter crash, also of dubious circumstances.

I think it would be fair to say that the instability of the region has a long history and having Atomic weapons capabilities makes the stomach turn just a bit faster as a result.

General Zia managed to conduct a one-on-one with Walter Cronkite and offered a few insights that, in hindsight may seem prophetic.

Gen. Zia: “What I am trying to say is, The United States Of America must see the true priorities in this region. If this region has any strategic significance in the minds of the United States citizens, if this region has any significance to the ultimate interests of the United States of America and the free world, then I am afraid the question of hostages should not be viewed on the emotional plain. I very strongly recommend, Mister Cronkite, that we should view the situation in a much bigger perspective. It is a global problem in my opinion. The lives of fifty American nationals is as dear and as valuable to me as it is to any United States citizen. But I say there are much greater things at stake at the present moment, and we should take out the emotional aspects of an election year or of the human aspects of this, this cannot be ignored, I must agree. But I think there are much greater stakes involved in this issue than only the lives of fifty nationals.”

So in retrospect, listening to this interview now and knowing our current situation with Afghanistan and our relationship with Pakistan, it would seem the current problems with the Taliban in the region have been more or less a work-in-progress the last 25 or so years.

Nothing is ever as it seems and nothing ever happens instantly.

Since Walter Cronkite's passing, new focus has been put on the decline of legitimate news sources in America. The big three networks have fallen the way of the corporate cable news/propaganda networks and people are turning to alternate sources like The Daily Show to get a little truth with their news. That's why it came as no surprise that Jon Stewart was voted Most Trusted Newscaster In America in a recent Time poll.

Here's the breakdown of the results:

Jon Stewart - 44%
Brian Williams - 29%
Charles Gibson - 19%
Katie Couric - 7%

Not to take away from Stewart's accomplishments, but it does speak volumes about the way the American people view the major networks and their "news" departments -- and that they would take the word of a comedian more seriously than high profile, highly paid network news anchors.

Stewart has long taken on the corporate media, beginning with his notorious smackdown of the feckless Tucker Carlson on CNN's Crossfire in 2004, which lead to the eventual demise of the show. Since then, he has been relentless in his pursuit of the truth, and C&L has been posting videos from The Daily Show for years, along with many other blogs, big and small.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cBrian Williamswww.thedailyshow.com

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The unctuous Brian Williams tells Jon Stewart how much he looked up to Walter Cronkite - "He was a man I wanted to be" - and Stewart responds: "How does it feel, to fall so short?"

Smackdown!

Stewart then asks, "Do you think Walter Cronkite would be happy with what he sees in the news now?" Williams says yes, except for ... well, a lot of stuff that Cronkite didn't like about today's news biz.

And really, that's what it's all about, isn't it? All these media types and politicians paying tribute to a man who would absolutely horrify them if he were still alive - and still practicing journalism.

Instead, we have journalism by sound bite, by press release, by chummy relationships and the search for access.

Yes, heroes are much better when they're dead and gone, and not annoying career talking heads who aspire to gravitas without earning it.

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(Despite the overused cliche, he really was the most trusted man in America)

The idea of Walter Cronkite not being among us, even at the age of 92, is a hard concept to grasp. Those of us of a certain age who grew up with him every night, glued to our TV's during every defining moment of our history - hearing the words of calm and conscience, we came to expect he would always be around - maybe not nightly as he was until 1981, but in some form, some presence of the man we trusted - always there, always observing, always the witness.

But life doesn't work that way, and now we're left with moments of time, places in history we associate with Walter Cronkite.

Tributes the past day have been largely flashes of moments in history - the Moon landing, the JFK assassination.

I thought I would add something a little different to the mix - maybe not as earth shattering as a tragedy or a walk on the moon, but the postmortem of an election - November 7, 1968, when Nixon won by a narrow margin. The exhaustion of staying up most of the night to report returns up to the final moment when Nixon was declared winner. It's not a milestone moment, but it was typical of the eloquence, the thoughtful reflection on a night in a troubled time.

Those nights we turned to Walter Cronkite the most.

“There’s a great deal of talk tonight of Richard Nixon, not by his own admission a loveable figure, succeeding without a clear mandate, to the leadership of a divided nation. These, to put it mildly, are negative thoughts. President-elect Nixon has said his first job will be to try and unite the nation. There’s no one who can say tonight, including Richard Nixon, whether he can do that job. Who can restore the hope of the American spirit, to all our people, black and white, rich and poor. But there is one thing that should be abundantly clear, the President-elect, whether it was Nixon or Humphrey or Wallace or the candidate of the Prohibition Party, could not do that job alone. The leaders of the opposition including Dick Gregory in a particularly Statesman-like concession called for unity. Their followers can do no less than to give the new man a chance. This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News election headquarters – good night.”

And that's the way it was.

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RIP Walter Cronkite, 1916 - 2009

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