Vietnam, Watergate, immense policy failures, and (often-blind) faith in govt

Good on Vietnam and Watergate-- and their impact on the presidency in particular...

Ideological concerns probably prevent Burns and Novick from extending their analysis to reduced faith in government in general.

And then beyond this essay, faith in govt has been (quite reasonably) diminished (greatly) by a slew of policy failures since then-- as govt tried to move from low-hanging fruit (e.g., roads and space exploration) to impossible efforts with massive side-effects (e.g., the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs).