No, can't see him as Cronkite. He's always played goofballs.
I saw a movie with Jeff Daniels called “The Crossing” about George Washington and the crossing of the Delaware.
He played George Washington.
I thought he was very good...a good actor, but...every single time I looked at him, all I could see was “Dumb and Dumber”!
(I did like him as Joshua Chamberlain in “Gettysburg”...)
But maybe what we're talking about is different ways of being goofy.
Old Walter was losing a lot of his marbles in his last years.