Suddenly, Washington is the guiding light

Besides more spending, Washington is moving toward a bigger role in terror prevention and airline safety. There's the developing high-profile military offensive - Operation Infinite Justice - which will likely be a long-term effort to halt terror. There are also discussions about boosting law-enforcement's ability to combat terrorism domestically. This could include the ability to seize billing information or tap into computers without a court order - which would raise civil-liberties concerns.

Also, there's growing support for federalizing airport security - or at least adding measures like armed federal marshals on airplanes. All these measures signal a bigger role for Washington.

Most agree desperate circumstances require dramatic action, but some economists worry that a spend-heavy Washington will lose the steely fiscal discipline it developed over the past decade - and that this could harm future economic growth.

Understandably, "there's a groundswell to do something generous - and the purse strings are open," says Richard DeKaser, chief economist for National City Bank in Cleveland. But if not halted after a few months, "This risks being the camel's nose under the tent," he says.

Already, bond markets have responded to the threat of deficit spending by pushing up long-term interest rates - which could bring, for instance, higher home-mortgage rates.

But this hasn't broken the parties' unity on the need to spend - at least in the short term - to solve current crises. To be sure, major philosophical divides still exist. But the parties are intent - in a way not seen for decades - on forging common ground and moving forward.

"If a big dispute can't be resolved behind closed doors, there will be very little desire to move it to the floor of the House or Senate," says Marshall Wittmann, a congressional analyst at the Hudson Institute here.

That attitude, he says, reflects the fast-changing political reality - to which politicians are very good at adapting. "They realize the American people have no stomach for partisanship," he says. So, it's "either their goodwill - or their political instincts - that tell them they need to learn to get along." This will help heal partisan wounds from recent years.

Yet some argue that debate - even if partisan - is crucial to winning Washington's new battles. "We seem to have forgotten Vietnam too quickly," says historian Arthur Schlesinger, referring to the country's mostly unquestioning acceptance of President Johnson's escalation in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. "You have to convince the country" - through a public airing of ideas - "that this is the right direction to go."

In the end, though, only Washington can play this role. "Without a strong central government," he says, "we don't know which direction the country is going."

Staff writers Francine Kiefer and Gail Russell Chaddock contributed to this report.

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