Steve, the thing is, you could have said “I miss Moynihan” for about the last 25 years of his career. Basically since shortly after he reached the Senate. At least, that’s my view (and that of many people who once admired him greatly). (And that number includes some who worked for him, early on.) The Moynihan of the Nixon administration and of the U.N. ambassadorship and so on was basically a figure of the past — during that long Senate career. I wrote about this in an NR piece found here, for anyone interested in what may seem an ancient question.
P.S. That link leads to a messy version — an out-of-format version — which I’m sorry about. But the words are there, essentially.