Honesty and decency in the US government has been an illusion since its founding. E.g. [link|http://www.oldnewspublishing.com/burr.htm|Hamilton and Burr]. I don't think Nixon was around in 1804.
Besides, we shouldn't blindly trust those that govern us.
Which means Nixon probably did us a favour by reminding us. :-)
I wonder whether I'm alone in believing that our government is potentially more dangerous to us, as they impact our lives much more directly. The enemy excels at randomly killing people here and there (sometimes in large numbers) but they haven't had much success beyond that.