Earlier this afternoon [1] I wrote about how "tactically speaking the party of conservatism is more the heir to Watergate than it is to Goldwater." Here's a little tidbit from the archives dug up by Sean Wilentz in his new book The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 [2]: it's May, 1975, and Seymour Hersh of the New York Times has just broke the story of a secret submarine mission inside Soviet territorial waters.

Here's Dick Cheney's handwritten notes on how the Ford administration might proceed next: "go after Hersh papers in his apt."

Our long national nightmare, it would appear, was not quite over.

[To clarify: this would be Mr. Cheney proposing breaking into Seymour Hersh's apartment. Wilentz does indicate that, to Cheney's credit, he thought they should seek a search warrant first. Those were the good old days...]