Two events clashed for me over the weekend — the death of CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite and the approaching 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s famous leap for mankind.

As I read news stories, feature stories and opinion pieces over the last week or so as today’s  lunar landing’s anniversary approached, I always recalled Uncle Walter’s reaction in the CBS studios that hot July day.

“Man on the moon,” Cronkite said, almost giggling with delight as Armstrong reported the Eagle lunar landing module had touched down. “Oh boy,” he added moments later.

Here was the man who told us — and therefore President Johnson — that Vietnam was lost. The man who reported on JFK’s assassination. The print reporter who filed storties from battlefields of Europe during World War II. And he was nearly speechless, imploring his analyst, astronaut Wally Schirra, to say something, perhaps anything, because Cronkite was speechless, all the while taking off his eyeglasses and rubbing his hands together.

I was just 8 years old and just as excited as Cronkite. By gosh, I’d go to the Air Force Academy and become a fighter pilot and then an astronaut.

Although my commitment to the academy and flight faded with my vision, spaceflight still amazes me.

Just as I’m chagrined at NASA being a shadow of itself these days, I’m also chagrined at the state of national news broadcasting. Can you imagine anyone considering Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann or Dan Rather being considered the most trusted man in America?

I can’t. Sure, Cronkite was stating his own view on Vietnam, but at least it was clearly defined as an editorial. Most of the clowns that have followed Cronkite couldn’t carry his copy, let alone his mantle.

And we’re all the worse for it.

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