Veteran Walter Cronkite, deliveryman of historic news, dies at 92

Word tonight that Walter Cronkite, the veteran World War II wire service newsman who went on to deliver so many historic political and other stories to American television viewers, has died.

He was 92 years old. (Portions of a CBS news release are published below.)

For a generation Cronkite -- the original "anchorman," as the term came to be used -- announced the news of such important events as political conventions, historic space launches, the moon landing and the famous shirt-sleeved broadcast of the assassination death of John F. Kennedy (see video below), back when the world was black-and-white.

Cronkite's calm, measured tones and fatherly appearance gave him unusual influence in the developing medium of TV news.

So when he began to focus on personally reporting such stories as the Vietnam War and the Watergate break-in, his skepticisms spread widely.

But it was all based on old-fashioned print-journalism reporting skills honed for United Press where he served as a war correspondent in the European theater during World War II, marching with Allied troops and even going on a nighttime heavy bomber mission over Germany to get the sights and sounds for his stories.

As Mervin Block, a longtime Cronkite writer, puts it, "He was a serious, hard-working guy with a background of reporting and writing that so many of today's anchors lack."

Plus the fact, Cronkite had a great mustache.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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What's really behind Obama's sudden plea for troubled health reforms today

Friday afternoons and evenings -- as we've mentioned here previously -- are usually a dumping ground for political news its originators do not want noticed much. Especially entering warm summer weekends.

The flip side of that adage is that there's rarely much competition for the news at those times. Tah-dah! Not by accident Friday nearly an hour late but what else is new, President Barack Obama (despite the shattering death of his beloved teleprompter earlier this week) staged an unscheduled media availability to insert himself into the news.

Not much competition, so he got lots of coverage. And since he walked out afterward without deigning to take any questions, there was no chance of anything else detracting from the message he wanted to insert: Healthcare now!

The president knows his keystone program is in deep trouble and losing momentum. That's why his organization is sending out all those e-mails and organizing local discussion groups to mobilize grassroots support and why he drags the subject into everything he talks about. Why he even dragged it into a speech Thursday night celebrating the NAACP's centennial. And he'll no doubt focus on the same subject in his weekly address tomorrow (Text here as always at 3 a.m. Pacific Saturday).

"Now is not the time to slow down," he pleads.

Which sounds much like winter's successful argument for urgent passage of the economic stimulus bill, whose benefits have yet to appear. We gotta do this now doesn't always work the second time around.

Obama insists Congress get a healthcare reform program drafted before its members leave on....

Obama's historic all-female Marine One crew

It was another first in presidential history.

When President Obama left the White House on Thursday for Andrews Air Force Base, the Marine One helicopter that lifted off from the South Lawn was piloted by the first female helicopter aircraft commander in Marine One history. Maj. Jennifer Grieves of Glendale, Ariz., flew her first Marine One mission in May 2008, and had flown Obama and then-President George W. Bush.

In honor of Grieves' last day in the rotation, the Marines assigned two other female officers -- Maj. Jennifer L. Marino, of Palisade, Colo., and Sgt. Rachael A. Sherman, of Traverse City, Mich. -- to complete the crew. And that all-female crew was another first.

Marines say Grieves is off to Command and Staff College in Quantico, Va.

When the president boarded Marine One en route to try to salvage Gov. Jon Corzine's reelection bid in New Jersey and to address the NAACP in New York, he stopped to talk to Grieves and shook her hand.

Of course Obama is accustomed to being surrounded by women. At the White House he lives with First Lady Michelle Obama; their daughters, Malia and Sasha; and his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson.

Still, it was a singular moment in girl power when the chopper lifted off.

Perhaps CNN put it best when it called Grieves "the woman that shattered Marine One's glass rotors."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photos: President Obama. Credit: Associated Press.

Maj. Grieves. Credit: Getty Images.

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Harry Reid slays rumors of an Obama ban on federal travel to Las Vegas

Las Vegas has made a fortune off its sly slogan, the one suggesting what happens in Vegas stays in the famously — hmmm, how to put it? — open-minded city. But getting people to Vegas hasn’t been so easy of late, what with the lousy economy.

And it didn’t help when President Obama took a shot at the desert playground, making an offhand banker-bashing remark that seemed to tie Las Vegas to corporate excess.

("You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime," Obama said in some February banker-basing in Indiana, campaigning for his economic stimulus plan amid widespread bailout fatigue. Indiana in February; now there's a resort destination.)

The governor of Nevada, Republican Jim Gibbons, and the mayor of Las Vegas, Democrat Oscar Goodman, pitched a fit.

Gibbons claimed the comment cost the city a stunning, if unverifiable, $100 million in lost business. Goodman demanded an apology.

Obama complied, sort of.

During a May visit -- with temperatures creeping into the 90s as he hit the city to raise millions for Harry Reid and visit an Air Force base -- the president allowed as how “there’s nothing like a quick trip to Vegas in the middle of the week.”

That, however, failed to mollify Goodman. Worse, word began to reach Nevada of an unofficial policy that seemed to make Vegas verboten for bureaucratic getaways. 

So Nevada’s Democratic Sen. Harry Reid — the Senate Majority Leader and, thus, a crucial Obama ally — recently dashed off a note to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, complaining that the FBI, General Services Administration (Reid called it the General Services Agency) and Bureau of Indian Affairs had all apparently relocated gatherings once destined for Las Vegas.

True enough, Reid said, the city has “a well-earned reputation as a world-class dining and entertainment destination.” But there’s also plenty of reasonably priced (presumably mundane, distraction-free) convention space and an average nightly room rate of $98, “which is far lower than most ...  major convention cities,” Reid said.

“It is my view that travel decisions made by federal agencies should be based upon these considerations,” the senator wrote. 

This week came back the reply from Emanuel: Viva Las Vegas! 

The federal government has no business forbidding government meetings and conferences from taking place in communities “known for attracting vacationers,” Emanuel wrote. “For me, the test of government travel is what will be accomplished by that travel and whether the cost to the government is reasonable as opposed to other options.”

No word on how the "what happens/stays" formulation might be affected by the federal Freedom of Information Act.

-- Mark Z. Barabak

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Photo: President Obama walks with Brig. Gen. Stanley T. Kresge at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas in May. Credit: Associated Press