Thankfully, it seems finally to have dawned on President Obama that al Qaeda is an indefatigable enemy of the United States, and will seize any and every opportunity to kill Americans. And it appears to have surprised Janet Napolitano to realize how determined al-Qaeda can be, whether commissioning individuals to commit acts of terror or planning large-scale operations.

These revelations will come as some relief to those who have worried about the attitude of the Obama administration toward the war on terror. But they carry with them a troubling echo from the recent past. I refer to Jimmy Carter’s New Year’s Eve 1979-80 interview with ABC news reader Frank Reynolds, conducted in the wake of the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.