However Cheney decided to destroy the tooling and molds for the Tomcat, and effectively put the 'cat to sleep. As the current planes age there will be no replacements, and it is sayonara for them.
The probable reason for that faux pas was probably to ensure the JSF and the F-18E/F SuperHornet were not relegated in favor of a souped up Tomcat. Think of it, it would be evry hard to push for the superhornet if a superTomCat with modern avionucs and new tech rolled out. If the current Tomcats (that originally rolled out in 1973) are better than the current crop of SuperHornets, imagine the competition a 2002 TomCat would have given to the SuperHornet, and possibly even the JSF.
Such a thing could not happen, and thus the tooling was destroyed and the Tomcat program effectively killed. All in favor of the F/A-18! A plane that Israeli F-16s (in mock matchups) beat 220 times out of 240 (yes, you read me correctly! In an Israeli F-16/American F-18 match up the Israeli jets won the American hornets 220 times out of 240).
And yes, i know the Israeli pilots are trained like crazy since they do not have the numerical advantages the USAF has, but 220 out of 240! Do the kill ratio on that one!