For anyone whose political identity was formed during the poison years bracketed by Walter Cronkite's tenure as CBS evening anchor, the avuncular newsman was like the kindly, reassuring narrator of a political horror story. If, as CBS News president Sean McManus mourns, Cronkite's status "will never be duplicated again,” it's not only due to the modern fragmentation of the news audience -- it's also because, ideally, the country will never again go through such an extended trainwreck. The events reported by Cronkite during his 19 years as anchor -- a shorter tenure than his successor Dan Rather's, or Tom Brokaw's at NBC, but so much more influential -- are America's lasting scar tissue. (more...)