Republicans were shameless in politicizing the incident, knowing that rehabilitating Bush's approach

[underpants]

The decade when the U.S. lost its way

That is why Obama, despite his fervent wishes, has been unable to usher in a new period of consensus. Bush's defenders know that Obama's election represented a popular reaction against the consequences of the Bush presidency. Because Obama is both the anti-Bush and the leader of the post-Bush cleanup squad, his success would complete the rebuke. So the Bush camp -- Karl Rove's regular contributions to the Wall Street Journal's opinion pages are emblematic -- must stay on the attack.

Domestically, Obama inherited an economic catastrophe. Dealing with the wreckage required a large expenditure of public funds that increased a deficit already bloated by President Bush's decision to fight two wars and to cut taxes at the same time. Bush's defenders, preferring to divert attention from this period of irresponsibility, act as if the world began on Jan. 20, 2009, by way of saddling Obama with the blame for everything that now ails us. But the previous eight years cannot be wished away.

This conceptual clash makes it imperative for Obama to inspire trust in his capacity to thwart terrorism, and his administration's initial response to the Christmas Day airliner attack fell short. Republicans were shameless in politicizing the incident, knowing that rehabilitating Bush's approach to terrorism depends on discrediting Obama's. The president can't afford to give them anything to work with, as he finally seemed to grasp on Tuesday.

It should not surprise us that the battle for the future will be shaped by struggles over the past. How often over the past 40 years have conservatives defended their policies in the name of rolling back "the excesses of the '60s"? For even longer, liberals were charged with being locked into "the New Deal approaches of the 1930s." Liberals, in turn, pointed proudly to both eras as times of unparalleled social advance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/30/AR2009123002187.html