For the 2004 election season, Cronkite watched Tom Brokaw of NBC News during his final season as anchor. The contrast between Brokaw’s classy comportment and Rather’s look-at-me arrogance told Cronkite who his real heir was. CBS News faced one of its darkest moments shortly after Labor Day: anchorman Rather claimed that President Bush had often been AWOL from duty when he was a lieutenant in the Texas Air National Guard from 1968 to 1973.
