Since Inauguration Day 2009, a firestorm of scorn has scorched the op-ed pages of the nation’s dailies extolling the evils of partisanship in Washington, D.C. as typified by “black hat” Republicans and their stubborn refusals at “compromise.”

For the most incurable of all cynics – the columnists and editorial board members for whom an irrational fear of gridlock has become greater than the fear of the problems that lopsided legislation may create – a ray of hope shone down on Saturday when President Obama signed a one-year extension of key provisions of the Patriot Act that were set to expire at midnight Sunday.

The extension was the bipartisan product of the Senate Judiciary Committee led by ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Session (R-AL) and committee chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

The capabilities of the act that were saved by the extension are court-approved roving wiretaps to allow the surveillance of multiple phones, the ability to seize records and property from suspected terrorists, and so-called “lone wolf” surveillance of non-U.S. citizens who may be planning terrorism but have not been connected to a known terrorist organization.

Sessions was instrumental in pushing through the measure to preserve the most crucial elements of America’s keystone counterterrorism surveillance law. Leahy was successful in holding out against the push for a full four-year reauthorization that has been fervently sought by Sessions and Sens. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT).

The Senate Judiciary Committee quickly and quietly voted Wednesday to move the agreement to the Senate floor where it was swiftly passed by voice vote. On Thursday, the House voted overwhelmingly (315-97) to send the agreement to the president and by Saturday afternoon Obama’s signature had been executed.

Breaking a logjam that had been in place since negotiations broke down last October – centered on the Democrats’ wish to place new restraints on government surveillance authority – required moving the discussion back to ground zero and prioritizing national security concerns ahead of political gamesmanship.

For terrorists it means – at least for the next year – continuing to divert scarce time and energy to the work of evasion, steps that in many cases make planning major operations unfeasible. Every minute that a terrorist cell is forced to spend finding new communication pathways or hiding from the electronic watchtowers of the U.S. intelligence network is a minute not devoted to planning or carrying out an attack.

For Republicans, the victory of rescuing the most vital portions of the act from legislative euthanasia also may translate to ballot box. As Democrats, in effect, concede the battle of ideas around the right of the government to conduct necessary snooping actions it also turns up the volume on the election year refrain that only the GOP is seriously focused on counterterrorism.

The Democratic retreat from a previously staunch and idealistic crusade to end the government’s ability to – in the words of so many on the left – “spy on Americans,” solidified speculation that the realities of national security brought home by the tragic massacre at Fort Hood and the near-disaster of the failed Christmas Day mid-air bombing attempt have trumped political gamesmanship.

Don’t strain your eyes searching for coverage on bellwether editorial pages in the New York Times and Washington Post, however. Not a drop of precious news ink was wasted in praise (or scorn) of the bipartisan moment.

Is there a general lesson to be learned from the underreported Patriot Act extension? If so, it is almost certainly that bipartisanship is only possible when legislators build a compromise by getting behind only those actions that do not make the present situation worse. Sessions said, when the last temporary extension agreement was reached in lieu of a reauthorization bill last December, that the litmus test for all legislation dealing with national security was that it “First do no harm.”

Perhaps if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid were to have implemented Sessions’ protocol from the beginning of the 2009 session the fortunes of the Democrats and the nation as a whole would be in far better shape.

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