To be sure, the yearlong celebration, a series of shows and events, offers plenty of backward looks.
It could potentially require a full-scale legal investigation, complicate prosecutions of individuals suspected of committing terrorism and mire the new administration in just the kind of backward look that Mr. Obama has said he would like to avoid.
The performance measurement revolution started in the late 1970s with the dissatisfaction of traditional backward looking accounting systems.
Other than the category distortions, a big problem with Morningstar rankings and rankings by Forbes or any other organization is that they are of necessity backward looking.
"The suggestion that they are going to address this by dealing with the whole issue of contamination of seminarians is backward looking and disingenuous," he said.
However, the point of view is backward, looking down the staircase, as the camera used the staircase's handrail as a dolly track, being lowered slowly by means of a wire.
The new nationalism of the populist right is a backward looking mobilisation of political ressentiments rather than a feasible project of strengthening the nation-state.
"I've been warning for weeks that while, of course, we should be alarmed about the prospects of Ed Miliband dancing to the tune of Alex Salmond, we should be equally alarmed at the prospect of a hapless David Cameron, minority Conservative administration, dancing to the tune of Nigel Farage, the right wing of his own party and some of these truly, truly, backward looking views from the DUP".
The technology of this "Frankenstein" is deliberately backward looking.
"Our conclusion is a lot of the measures are still backward looking".
