Is the era of worrying about big government over? 

That's what the media have concluded from last month's terrorist attacks. "Now, Government Is the Solution, Not the Problem," proclaims the New York Times. "Suddenly, the political language of a generation looks dated: Nobody wants to get the government off their backs." The front page of the Wall Street Journal says the attacks "brought an abrupt end to the trend toward less expansive government." Los Angeles Times ace reporter Ron Brownstein writes that "the entire impulse to distrust government" seems "instantly anachronistic."

Obviously, a massacre of American civilians by a foreign enemy, followed by an air travel shutdown and a stock market slide, prompts Americans of all ideologies to rally around their leaders and look to Washington, D.C., for a response. But does it signal a general revival of trust in government? If so, will that revival last? Has it ended our concern about keeping government off our backs? Does it reflect structural changes in our beliefs about which things are the government's business and which aren't? So far, the evidence supports none of those conclusions.

Exhibit A for the government-is-back thesis is a Sept. 25-27 Washington Post poll question: "How much of the time do you trust the government in Washington to do what is right?" Sixty-four percent of respondents answered "just about always" or "most of the time," more than double the percentage that gave those answers in April 2000. It seems a straightforward question, but it isn't. We're in a moment of national crisis. If a pollster asks whether you trust the government and whether you think President Bush is doing a good job, patriotism—or fear of appearing unpatriotic—prompts you to say yes.

Even if you take these questions literally, they're ambiguous. Take the job approval question. On Sept. 9, public approval "of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president" stood at 55 percent in the Post poll. By Sept. 13, 6,000 dead civilians later, Bush's approval rating had soared to 86 percent. Is it plausible that two of every three people who previously disapproved of Bush changed their minds about him? Or is it more plausible that Sept. 11 changed their interpretation of his job? A month ago, the job was about tax cuts, oil drilling, and HMO regulation. Now it's about fighting terrorism.

It's even harder to explain why so many respondents now say "things in the nation are generally headed in the right direction" rather than "off on the wrong track." In June, the right/wrong ratio in the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll was 43-39. But four days after the September catastrophe and the onset of economic shock, the ratio shot up to 72-11. Is it conceivable that three of every 10 Americans thought things were suddenly heading in the right direction? For that matter, look at the Post's question, "How much confidence do you have in the ability of the U.S. government to prevent further terrorist attacks against Americans in this country?" Four years ago, only 35 percent of respondents said they had "a great deal" or "a good amount" of confidence. On Sept. 11, after the worst terrorist attacks ever, the percentage expressing such confidence jumped to 66 percent.

It's absurd to accept at face value that Sept. 11 infused so many previously skeptical Americans with literal trust in Bush, the country's direction, or terrorism prevention. It's equally absurd to conclude that they now literally trust government.

But suppose they do, for the time being. Should we then accept the media's verdict that this marks the end of an era? Is the New YorkTimes' Louis Uchitelle correct that "Years of resistance to government spending probably dissolved on Sept. 11"?

Having declared Bush "toast" a year ago when his poll numbers dived, Frame Game advises the government-is-back crowd to wait for more data before drawing long-term conclusions. Conservatives learned to be wary of wartime popularity spikes in 1991, when the 90 percent approval rating of another President Bush—and with it, the near-majority of respondents claiming to "trust the government"—evaporated after victory in the Persian Gulf. This time, a slide in the polls seems even more likely, since, according to the Post's survey analysis, the public holds "expectations of victory that far exceeded the Bush administration's stated war aims," much less its ability to achieve those aims.

The government-is-back movement thinks spending has taken a fundamental turn. "In just two weeks, the terrorist attacks have turned a two-decade trend toward less government into a headlong rush for more," says the Journal's front-page story. But what was last year's rate of increase in spending? Eight percent. And what was the front-page headline in yesterday's Post? "Deal Reached on 8% Spending Boost."