Everybody has skeletons in their closet. Lots of people have tried to dig up dirt on Mr. Rogers' saintly image, but failed.
Meanwhile, Melanie Martinez, the host on PBS' "The Good Night Show" for children got canned when some "offensive" humor video she had made prior to her position surfaced. Her on-air personality was perfectly congenial.
Mr. Rogers only worked because he was less human than the rest of us. He never slipped up. We never caught him picking up hookers by the docks. We could never find a reason to take him down.
The point I really want to make is that for all that people talk about how fantastic he was and how he should have been canonized etc. -- he was just a guy who decided to do that. There's nothing stopping anyone else from doing that, from being nice and going the extra mile for other people.
There isn't some intrinsic quality that prevents anyone from being like that other than the decision to, well, do that.
He's special because he stepped up and did it.