Boston aftermath: No "bipartisan moment"?

Now, despite Obama’s wishes, battle-weary Democrats and Republicans fear just the opposite will happen this time: whatever turn the investigation in Boston takes — whether the killer or killers was foreign terrorist or home-grown murderer — the long-term result is likely to foster a new cycle of finger-pointing, recrimination and political positioning.

“It’s sad you have to hope it’s a completely random thing, because I think our political system can’t handle it if it’s someone with a political agenda,” said a longtime Obama adviser.

In fact, one senior Democrat predicted that the most likely political consequence was that some senators would use the attack “as cover” to oppose the bipartisan compromise on guns inching its way through the upper chamber. White House officials, this Democrat said, had no expectation that the Boston attacks would create an “era of good feeling.”

For years before Monday, Republicans, from King to Mitt Romney to John McCain, have accused Obama of dangerously downplaying the threat of Islamic terrorism in hopes of appeasing the Muslim world. They made the administration’s response to the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a major foreign policy focus of last year’s election — held up as proof that Obama’s policy were too soft — and hammered the White House for dropping Bush’s description of the struggle against Al Qaeda as a “War on Terror.”