#77 Vivo:

“It’s very simple: people liked him.

That’s how simple American people are and how they choose their icons. Just like music and sports, people like something and then icons are born.”

I don’t think for a minute that Americans – “simple” or otherwise – are so stupid that they turn people into “icons” merely because they like them. I like lots of people but I don’t regard them as “icons” or saints.

Americans who canonize people just because they like them are indeed “simple Americans”, but not quite in the sense that you meant it.

The point you haven’t answered is that the canonization of Cronkite is based on sentimentality. Like him by all means, like him a lot, but don’t turn him into an object of veneration and invest him with every conceivable virtue, because it’s dumb; he’s done nothing to deserve that kind of treatment.