Dan Rather was the replacement for Walter Cronkite, remember.

Dan just saw the accolades the media heaped on Cronkite when he died.

Dan had planned all along to be similarly idolized when he passed to the Great Beyond. He sees the treatment Cronkite got, and he sees what he thinks he deserves. And he knows in his heart now that when he eventually dies of old age, his passing will barely be noted — a footnote in history. And the pain of not going down in the annals of the media as one of the all-time greats is simply driving him crazy. He blew it big-time. And his downfall? The Rathergate memos.

(One might argue that Cronkite doomed LBJ and forced him to withdraw from the race after the public believed Cronkite’s lie that the Tet Offensive defeated the Americans and that the war was lost. And that Rather wanted to repeat that “success” at determining the outcome of a presidential race. But in truth, I think LBJ had already decided to not run by the time of the Tet Offensive anyway.)