Distantly related to Dr. Samuel Mudd, as in “your name is –,” he is the man who should have succeeded Walter Cronkite as the most trusted man in America at CBS instead of “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” Born in 1928, Roger Mudd finished a long and distinguished career at NBC.

Not incidentally, he did the nation an immeasurable favor by torpedoing the presidential campaign of the late Ted Kennedy by asking one simple question:

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Too bad newsmen don’t ask that question any more.