Someone please tell me how Walter Cronkite went from this paragraph:

The United States, NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech can rejoice over the successful Jan. 3 landing on Mars of the spacecraft called Spirit. Soon it will be commanded to begin moving from its landing site to search for evidence that there once was life on the red planet.

Meanwhile, space buffs, many of whom are known for their vivid imaginations, predict another activity for the craft: breakdown. During the past three years, several American and British robots have reached Mars only to refuse to communicate with their masters on Earth. There is no reason to believe that it will happen to Spirit. Should it happen, however, it would be a terrible blow to international science. So strained is the U.S. Treasury that it seems unlikely that we could fund another try.

Veered to this:

In far-reaching contrast to this gloom, those space buffs might consider that the failure of previous explorers could indicate that there is highly intelligent life on Mars. Is it possible that, since the earlier robots landed all right, Martians simply turned off the transmitters? It would seem without question that the Martians, having seen the American/British invasion of Iraq, would be concerned about the arrival of these travelers.

To this:

If this speculation gains momentum in Washington, we can expect a flurry of activity. Almost certainly the space program will immediately be taken away from NASA and given to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice who will in turn bypass the State Department to work with British colleagues and those of the 49 other nations that make up the Iraq Coalition.

There will develop inevitable strain between CIA Director George Tenet and the White House as Tenet seeks to protect from inadvertent or deliberate misuse by the White House whatever data his agency has of Martian intentions.

The President's chief political adviser, the powerful Karl Rove, will not decide what to leak to the press until he gets a far clearer picture of the likely effect on this fall's election.

You can remember that you read all this here. This columnist regrets, however, that I do not have the resources to pursue this story to the depths it might or might not deserve.

This man was once known as "The most trusted man in America". Now, I wouldn't trust him to feed my cats. Why wouldn't the Inquirer just not run this column, I mean, this is evidence of a man breaking down. My God, He makes Maureen Dowd look absolutely sane.