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What year is this?

Ross Douthat of The Atlantic asked that question in a smart Wall Street Journal article three years ago. What he meant was that how you viewed foreign policy depended on which of several watershed years you thought 2006 resembled: the 1938 of appeasement, the 1948 of containment, the 1972 of Vietnam, and so on.

In the spirit of Douthat's question, what year is it now for President Obama?

Democrats hope that it's 1981. A new president with a new mandate proposes a bold program that restores economic growth, rebuilds the country's confidence, and seizes the mantle of prosperity for his party.

Republicans hope that it's 1993. A politically talented but inexperienced Democratic president abandons the center, overreaches with a health care bill, and revives Republicans' prospects.

Republicans fear that it's 1933. A charismatic Democrat capitalizes on an economic crisis to rewrite the contract between Washington and the public, relegating Republicans to minority party status for a generation.

And Democrats fear -- what? They should keep a wary eye on 1993, of course. But they should be more worried that this year is 2002. Obama and George W. Bush could hardly be less alike, which makes it all the odder to say that Obama may be in the process of repeating his predecessor's mistakes.

In 2000, Bush defined his candidacy with three overarching promises: to restore dignity to the Oval Office, to be a compassionate (that is, centrist) conservative, and to be a uniter, not a divider. He kept the first promise, but it was the least important. He broke the second by becoming, in the public's mind, a hard-edged ideologue. He broke the third and most important promise most spectacularly, by emerging as the most divisive president in at least a generation. The public felt betrayed and angry. Along came Obama.

At least until the economic crisis emerged late in the campaign, Obama, too, was defined by three overarching promises: to restore America's prestige abroad, to bring change to Washington, and above all, to be a uniter, not a divider. In effect, he would redeem the promise that Bush had broken.

Bush never set out to break that promise; indeed, many Republicans believe that he kept it. After all, Bush joined with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to reform education; sought and received congressional support (bipartisan in the Senate) for the Iraq invasion; rejected conservative advice that he bypass the United Nations; and championed the biggest entitlement expansion (of Medicare) since LBJ. To the dismay of his own party, he favored moderate immigration reform and spent freely. What was so radical about any of that? Bushies will tell you that the Democrats were the ones who first drew the long knives.

In his determination to be not just a policy-changer but a game-changer, Bush polarized.

It was true that Bush was no conservative purist (some conservatives say that he was no conservative at all). True, but beside the point. In his determination to be not just a policy-changer but a game-changer, Bush polarized. Speaking contemptuously of "small ball," he saw himself as having four short years, eight if he was lucky, to achieve "transformational" standing. In 2002, with the ruins of the twin towers still smoldering, he saw an opportunity for regime change, in Washington as well as in Baghdad.

He declared a quasi-permanent state of war; made startling claims of presidential power; sought to reorient U.S. foreign policy around an "axis of evil"; attempted to refashion the Middle East; and portrayed the Democrats as too weak to govern. Far from promising a path back to normalcy, he seemed to relish upsetting equilibriums. Far from putting his pre-9/11 agenda on hold or modifying it in search of Democratic support, he stiffened his positions and pushed all the harder. The result was to inspire adulation among Republicans and raise alarm among Democrats.

Obama, too, promised to be a uniter, to reach out, to rise above partisanship. His sincerity deserves the benefit of the doubt; and, like Bush, he probably sees himself as trying his best despite fiercely partisan opposition. Still, not three months into his term, the bottom is already falling off his standing with Republicans. According to Gallup, his approval among Republicans fell 15 points, from 41 percent to 26 percent, from January to March. He is beginning to inspire adulation among Democrats and raise alarm among Republicans.

Like Bush, he may think this is not his fault. But he outsourced his stimulus package to congressional Democrats, who did things their way after concluding that Republicans were in no mood to compromise. They may have been right, but Obama could have tested Republicans by convening a bipartisan summit at the White House and asking both parties to make a deal.

Then came his budget. Republicans, including thoughtful ones, reacted with shock. "He is casting his lot with collectivists and statists; his intent is to put us on a glide path to European-style socialism," wrote Peter Wehner, a former Bush White House official who is now at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The administration pointed out that the budget merely kept Obama's promises. Nothing in it was radical or hard-left. Sympathetic commentators noted that Obama's departures from his campaign pledges were generally to the center, not the left.

Another accidental polarizer, another crisis-exploiting presidency, another well-intentioned overreach -- all, perhaps, to be followed by another public backlash.

All true, but, again, beside the point. Republicans have reason to fear that the net result of adopting Obama's budget will be to expand federal spending from 21 percent of gross domestic product, its set point for 40 years, to more like 25 percent by 2019 (a recent estimate by Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation).

Demographics and health costs are bound to increase government spending anyway; but, from Republicans' point of view, there was more, much more. Obama is proposing a cap-and-trade system that will entwine regulation with the financial and revenue systems as never before. His winner-picking energy subsidies may cause economic distortions and inefficiencies that will last for decades. His health care plan might turn the whole health insurance system into a giant version of Medicare.

Republicans' fears about Obama's policies may well be overwrought, as Democrats insist. Talk of impending socialism seems hysterical. But given that Obama wants to do all of these things simultaneously, and that he wants to do them all this year, how could Republicans be anything but frightened?

Obama, like Bush, set out with an agenda of his own devising, only to have another, crisis-driven agenda imposed upon him. Like Bush, he chose not to decouple the two agendas but to portray them as inextricably linked and drive them both forward. Like Bush, he seemed to decide that the crisis made a handy sledgehammer. Unlike Bush, he let his people say so.

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, famously said in November. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before." Obama did not repudiate that statement, or a similar one by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton: "Never waste a good crisis," she said in March. Not even Dick Cheney said that. In public, anyway.

Well, Obama did campaign on "change." And it is natural for a politician to press every advantage and make use of every opportunity. But the presidency is surrounded by what the historian Gil Troy has called invisible trip wires. Step beyond them, and you get zapped. Maybe not right away, but soon enough.

In 2002, Bush and his party seemed right for their moment. The other party appeared to be not just out of power but out of touch. September 11 had changed everything, and the Democrats didn't "get it."

Amid today's economic crisis, the roles are reversed. Obama and his party seem right for their moment. It is the Republicans who seem beached by history, trapped by an irrelevant ideology in a new era.

But new eras don't always last as long as expected. When the 9/11 tide subsided, Bush found himself far out at sea. He spent the last few years of his presidency forlornly paddling back to shore. He never did re-establish his shattered credibility with the broad American center. In the end, ironically, he inspired unity in only one regard: Most of the country disliked him.

Another accidental polarizer, another crisis-exploiting presidency, another well-intentioned overreach -- all, perhaps, to be followed by another public backlash as the promise of consensus is broken and the center once again proves elusive: These are the last things the country needs. The hardest part of being an ambitious president at a moment of crisis and opportunity is contriving not to overshoot. After 2002, Bush never rose to the challenge of moderation. Can Obama?

If only the question didn't need asking.