Miraculously, a single government policy initiative has united Washington, D.C. Elected officials who had been either locking horns or crossing swords over drugs, drones or deficits suddenly found themselves on the same side, thus reminding us of the timeless truth that in every political struggle you ever find yourself in, there will always be someone on your side you wish devoutly was on the other side.

What, you ask, was this bold, fresh idea? The announcement from the Transportation Security Administration that, as of April 25, passengers may carry pocketknives onto the nation’s airliners.

The reaction was immediate. Liberal Democrats stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Delta’s chief executive officer, Richard Anderson, who objected to the “additional risk to our cabin staff and customers.” Conservative Republicans embraced the Coalition of Flight Attendants Unions, representing nearly 90,000 members, whose sense of outrage can be seen in these words: “We are the last line of defense in aviation security, and time does not change the fact that we were among the first to die in a war we did not know we were fighting on Sept. 11 ...”