I was reading a column on the St. Petersburg Times op-ed page Sunday, when I threw the paper down in disgust.

The piece, by syndicated columnist Roger Simon, headlined "In the Future, All's Well," pokes fun at the lack of specifics in President Barack Obama's proposals for health care reform by boiling his message down to a simple perspective: "The future is really going to be sweet."

No real analysis of the options out there. No new ideas presented. Just a boatload of beltway-bred cynicism about an effort to bring about the biggest change in public services in many years.

I thought about the government programs we all take for granted now: Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security. And I wonder where the will that created these safety nets resides today.

At a time when we should be debating the effort to create another landmark program in American history, instead some of Washington's biggest journalists are stuck in gamesmanship mode -- too busy cynically dissecting the power plays at hand to look at the bigger picture.

Reminded me of another column, recently published in the Washington Post, revealing that venerated CBS newsman Walter Cronkite was nearly offered the vice presidential spot on George McGovern's Democratic presidential ticket in 1972. It never happened, because the pols were afraid he'd refuse; but Cronkite said later he would have accepted, hoping to end the Vietnam War as soon as possible.

If it had happened, we wouldn't have had Watergate, the war might have been shortened drastically and our national psyche might be very different now.

I couldn't imagine a newsman today taking such a pointed stand -- opposing an ongoing war strongly enough that a rival political party considered drafting that person for an electoral run. Odd as Cronkite's stand was, especially in those days of old-school objective journalism, it was an amazing example of a journalist crossing a line because the stakes were too high to do otherwise.

I don't expect any of today's news anchors to take a stand on which health care plan works. But taking a stand for the idea that this is an important debate and that change needs to come to a system that leaves out and bankrupts too many Americans -- that's a nod to ol' Uncle Walter we sorely need right now.

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