In his weekly column for CNN.com, Julian Zelizer makes a reasonable case that “Distrustful Americans still live in age of Watergate.” In his eyes, this helps explain why the president’s health care law and other initiatives have encountered so much resistance.

The Princeton professor concludes, “The worst effect of Watergate is that it created a climate where Americans fundamentally don’t trust their government.” He is right that former President Richard Nixon‘s scandal indisputably increased public skepticism of government, but the roots of that skepticism go back much further and are far deeper.