I can see why MSW would want to travel back in time to 1976 instead of lingering here in the ugliness of the present moment. I remember the bicentennial year quite well. The Vietnam war had just ended, Richard Nixon had been driven out of office, and everyone was in a celebratory mood, and in the spirit of the seventies, everyone was letting it "all hang out." The giddiness in the air that year gave birth to the election of Jimmy Carter, one of the most decent (if politically naive) presidents ever to serve. It was a happy time, and the nation, even at 200, still seemed young at heart.

Now, four decades later, the nation seems old, weary, and cynical, with a bitterly divided electorate and a once-proud, now-decrepit democracy that has become as old and dysfunctional as our aging infrastructure. It would be nice if we could somehow recapture the youthfulness and spirit of unity from 1976, but that cannot happen any more than lost virginity can be restored. What's gone is gone.