There's no longer any doubt about the master narrative of the Bush Administration. Their purpose is to re-litigate the 1970s. Nixon's downfall, let alone all that followed, clearly has stuck in Cheney's craw. All his New American Centurions were so scarred by the fall of Saigon and the Church Committee reforms that even Morning in the Gipper's America didn't do enough to restore the imperial executive and the American imperium. So now we watch as FISA and FOIA are dismantled, checks and balances are declared Congressional overreaching, and the bully pulpit is being used like Stalin's commissars used scissors and a paste-pot to purge and doctor the historical record.
So what's next? No doubt some reactionaries are drooling to undo Nixon's putting the coffin-nail in the gold standard. Perhaps others want to retake the Panama Canal which, after all, we stole fair and square. The Supreme Court's already doing a decent job rolling back civil rights and civil liberties from the 60s; surely overturning Buckley v Valleo's campaign contribution limits is next in line.
I'm putting my money on an attempt by GOP culure warriors to expunge disco from the national memory. Don't you have a feeling that this crowd is still in a world o' hurt from humiliations they suffered beneath a twirling mirrored ball yea many generations ago?