The Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, takes the fall.

"On the heels of a number of intelligence failures involving the Fort Hood shooter, failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab, and questions about failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad...."

Abdulmutallab is talking to the FBI.

FBI agents traveled to Nigeria and enlisted the help of his relatives, who "disagreed with his efforts to blow up American targets."

ADDED: Let's not forget all that criticism about telling Abdulmutallab about his Miranda rights:

Why are we reading Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights instead of taking him somewhere and forcibly finding out where he got the explosive underwear and whatever else he might know about Al Qaeda? Isn’t this, as well as the forthcoming federal court trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, proof that the Obama administration doesn’t really regard the war on terrorism as a war?...

Republican critics like Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich have raised these questions in the past few days....

There were ways, apparently consistent with American criminal procedural rights, to milk Abdulmutallab for information. If the first-linked story is true, the success of the method used must be acknowledged and taken into account by those who say that terrorist suspects/enemy combatants must be treated differently from those accused of ordinary crimes.

The White House, Washington... White House, Washington... WHITEHOUSE.

What's going on here?


(Photo by Stephen Crowley.)

The commenter EDH noticed this craziness in the photograph on the previous post:

As a photographer, maybe Althouse can explain why the NYT photo editor didn't crop that front-page, above-the-fold photo of Napolitano, but instead shared the frame to included a widescreen video monitor next to her displaying the single word "WHITEHOUSE" while she's standing behind a podium that says "The White House - Washington" and in front of a sign with a picture of the White House that says "White House - Washington"?

Is this supposed to symbolize the new "belt and suspenders" approach in action?

Here's the article the photo appears to illustrate:

Obama Details New Policies in Response to Terror Threat

By JEFF ZELENY and HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday ordered intelligence agencies to take a series of steps to streamline how terrorism threats are pursued and analyzed, saying the government had to respond aggressively to the failures that allowed a Nigerian man to ignite an explosive mixture on a commercial jetliner on Christmas Day.

Obama, eh? Well, he's not in the picture. Is all that "White House" business supposed to equal Obama?

The president also directed the Homeland Security Department to speed the installation of $1 billion in advanced-technology equipment for the screening of passengers, including body scanners at American airports and to work with international airports to see that they upgrade their own equipment to protect passengers on flights headed to the United States.

Janet Napolitano is the head of that Department, of course. Oddly, her name doesn't even come up in the article. What is the NYT doing here? The text seems to hide her inside of the name of the department, and the photograph shunts her to the side, with an unnamed man (Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan) backing her up, and White House signs buffeting her all around.

Compare Drudge's treatment of Napolitano, today (and yesterday):

Ah, poor Janet!

IN THE COMMENTS: Jim wrote:

I think the photograph is a not-so-subtle statement:

Janet Napolitano IS the White House.

Obama's game has been to let Obama appear to be "the adult in the room" by correcting and re-correcting Napolitano's repeated stupidity.

The editor here is saying: Hey Obama, we're not THAT stupid. She speaks for you, and we're a little sick of the game of you're playing. Napolitano speaks for you even when she says something stupid. We're not playing along any more.

When even the NYT editors make a point of telling Obama "You can no more disown Napolitano than you can disown your grandmother," you know you're in deep trouble...

Barack Nobamatano.

"The road to radicalization ran less through Yemen... than through the Islamic hothouse of London."

John Burns on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

[O]fficials in Washington and London have said they are focusing on the possibility that his London years, including his possible contacts with radical Muslim groups in Britain, were decisive in turning him toward Islamic extremism.

That view, if confirmed, would offer a stark reaffirmation that Britain, the United States’ closest ally, continues to pose a major threat to American security. Critics in Britain and the United States say the British security forces, despite major increases in budgets and manpower in recent years, have not yet succeeded in adequately monitoring, much less restraining, the Islamic militancy that thrives in the vast network of mosques that serve the nation’s 1.5 million Muslims — and on university campuses across the country where nearly 100,000 of the 500,000 students are Muslims, including many, like Mr. Abdulmutallab, from overseas....

[O]ne focus for investigators has been his activities in University College London’s Islamic Society, which he joined soon after enrolling at the university, perhaps partly as a refuge from the persistent loneliness he described in teenage postings on Islamic Web sites before he arrived in Britain....

The society’s guest speakers have included radical imams, former Guantánamo Bay prisoners and a cast of mostly left-wing, anti-American British politicians and human rights advocates. In January 2007, with Mr. Abdulmutallab as president, the society sponsored a “War on Terror Week” at venues on the University College campus, which was harshly critical of American conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan....

I must correct Barack Obama's grammar.

He said:

"A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable. There was a mix of human and systemic failure that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security."

He meant "potentially catastrophic breach of security." Potential needs to be an adverb, because it modifies the adjective catastrophic. It shouldn't be an adjective, which makes it seem to modify the noun breach. It was a breach. If the bomb had gone off, it would have been catastrophic. That's where the potentiality lies.

***

Anyway, it's painful to see the scramble to get from Napolitano's "the system worked" to "totally unacceptable ... catastrophic breach."

And speaking of Napolitano's abysmal performance over the weekend... where's Hillary? Was she made Secretary of State for the purpose of hiding her away?

Obama admits to "a systemic failure."

"When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, a systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable."

Released Guantanamo detainees did not respond to art therapy the way we were hoping.

They, apparently, went on to plan the Christmas Day bombing.

1. What does this say about art? Is art ineffectual or — think about it! — quite powerful? It seems to me that serious artists are not about using art to become serene members of the community. They try to make strong statements and shake complacent conformists. Épater la bourgeoisie. Terrorist ideology + art should = explosion.* Now, of course, it was probably incredibly lame art therapy, in which case it was laughably ineffectual. I just want you to think about what a despicable use of art this was all around. Whether it was weak art or strong art, it was not something to be prescribed to turn men away from terrorism.

2. These men — Guantanamo prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari and prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi (who for some reason has now changed the Harbi to Awfi) — were released in 2007, during the Bush Administration. So, that is Bush's fault. If Obama supporters want to take advantage of the argument that it's Bush fault, they must encourage Obama to take a harsher position than Bush did against the Guantanamo detainees. Could that happen? Hardly. But maybe Obama will toughen up about the detainees. He may have wanted to do that anyway, and the Flight 253 near-disaster gives him leverage for moving his position.

***

* I hope you haven't forgotten how some artists talked about 9/11. Here's an item printed in The Guardian on September 11, 2002:

The artist Damien Hirst said last night he believed the terrorists responsible for the September 11 attacks "need congratulating" because they achieved "something which nobody would ever have thought possible" on an artistic level....

"The thing about 9/11 is that it's kind of an artwork in its own right. It was wicked, but it was devised in this way for this kind of impact. It was devised visually."

Describing the image of the hijacked planes crashing into the twin towers as "visually stunning", he added: "You've got to hand it to them on some level because they've achieved something which nobody would have ever have thought possible, especially to a country as big as America.

"So on one level they kind of need congratulating, which a lot of people shy away from, which is a very dangerous thing."

Referring to how the event changed perceptions, he added: "I think our visual language has been changed by what happened on September 11: an aeroplane becomes a weapon - and if they fly close to buildings people start panicking. Our visual language is constantly changing in this way and I think as an artist you're constantly on the lookout for things like that."

AND: "Renoir said he painted his pictures with his penis... he did too, lovely pictures!" And Abdulmutallab attempted to create a "visually stunning" plane crash with his bomb-augmented penis.

"The slightly charred and singed underpants..."

I'm sorry, this gives me way too much hope for the survival of his dick.

ADDED: Here's the 6 inches of explosives he had in his pants:

Napolitano said she had no evidence this "is part of anything larger."

So then she's seen his dick?

"President Obama emerged from Hawaiian seclusion on Monday..."

"... to try to quell gathering criticism of his administration’s handling of the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner as a branch of Al Qaeda claimed responsibility."

Emerging from Hawaiian seclusion. That's the New York Times, friends, talking about emerging from Hawaii seclusion and trying to quell the gathering criticism....

That's the first paragraph. Then this:

“We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable,” Mr. Obama told reporters during a break in his 10-day holiday vacation. “This was a serious reminder of the dangers that we face and the nature of those who threaten our homeland.”

You will not rest? But you are in Hawaii. And you didn't even put on a tie.... You are resting. And you were resting when this happened.

Is he losing the NYT?!

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility and brags "We have prepared men who love to die."

CNN reports:

In the statement, published on radical Islamist Web sites, the group hailed the "brother" who carried out the "heroic attack." The group said it tested a "new kind of explosives" in the attack, and hailed the fact that the explosives "passed through security."

The group threatened further attacks, saying, "since Americans support their leaders they should expect more from us."

Napol(ogize)itano.

The Secretary of Homeland Security eats her words:

Ms. Napolitano said Monday on NBC’S “Today” that her remark the day before — “the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days” — had been taken out of context. “Our system did not work in this instance,” she said. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”

ADDED: Let's read the context. Candy Crowley is interviewing Napolitano on CNN's “State of the Union.” The first question is whether the attack was "part of a larger plot" or whether Abdulmutallab was "a lone wolf." Napolitano dumps her basic canned response — that people should trust the government and feel good about flying:

Well, right now, we have no indication that it’s part of anything larger, but obviously the investigation continues. And we have instituted more screening and what we call mitigation measures at airports. So I would advise you during this heavy holiday season just to arrive a bit early, and to know that we are going to be doing different things at different airports. So don’t expect to do the same thing at one airport when you transfer through to another airport.

But the traveling public -- this is my message for you, Candy. The traveling public is very, very safe in this air environment. And while we continue to investigate the source of this incident, I think the traveling public should be confident in what we are doing now.

Crowley forces her back to the original subject of the scope of the plot. She asks "has there been any evidence of the Al Qaida ties that this suspect has been claiming?" — which is slightly inane, since the suspect's claim of al Qaeda ties is evidence. But we know what she means. Napolitano says:

Right now, that is part of the criminal justice investigation that is ongoing...

The criminal justice investigation. That reveals a mindset. Is there a war on terrorism? Or does Napolitano think she's dealing with a crime problem?

... and I think it would be inappropriate to speculate as to whether or not he has such ties.

This is the criminal justice model.

What we are focused on is making sure that the air environment remains safe, that people are confident when they travel.

Now, she's back on her canned statement, the one that Crowley said she'd get to later, after focusing on where this incident fits in the war on terror. Napolitano is keen on repeating herself and slathering us with reassurance. It is here that she drops the quote everyone jumped on:

And one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight. We instituted new measures on the ground and at screening areas, both here in the United States and in Europe, where this flight originated.

The context is reassurance, and the lambasted quote isn't even reassuring. She was unresponsive to the question asked, other than to try to repackage the incident as a routine criminal matter, and in an effort to repeat herself, she said something laughably stupid.

So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.

The key word there is "respond." The notion is that it's fine to stand back and see what "crimes" occur and then show up and investigate.

Crowley presses on, saying "Well, it seems as though the reason this plane did not explode is that the explosion failed and then you had some quick passengers who jumped on him when he lit this fire. So let me ask you about how he could have gotten on the plane, with this substance, the PETN. I mean, we get on, you can’t have more than 3.4 ounces of toothpaste and you can’t have more than 3.4 ounces of anything in a little bag, and so I think people are thinking, so how does he get on with an explosive? How does that get past security?" Here's Napolitano again:

Well, we are asking the same questions, looking at what happened in Amsterdam as he transferred flights to a flight that was U.S.-bound. We have already been working with the airport and airline authorities there to see what kind of screening, screening equipment was used. We have no suggestion that he was improperly screened, but we want to go through and see. We’re always ...

No suggestion! Ridiculous! Crowley interrupts:

CROWLEY: I’m sorry, but if he was not improperly screened or properly screened, and yet you want Americans to feel safe on the planes, and so if it was properly screened and he got on anyway with that, it doesn’t feel that safe.

NAPOLITANO: Well, you know, it should.

Wha?????!!!!

This was one individual literally of thousands that fly and thousands of flights every year.

Oh, thanks. I just read that out loud, and my son Chris said: "That's like saying you shouldn't be worried about terrorism at all, because even if you were flying on 9/11, the likelihood of you being on one of the actual flights that were hijacked is very low."

What an awful performance. And check it out in video form:



Why is she slurring her words like that? Does she sound drugged or drunk to you? Or is that some sort of effort to sound like a tough guy? Now, watch it with the sound off. That bland half-smile — that numb mask — those unblinking, wide eyes ... the visual is weirdly incongruent with the audio.

10 Reasons Why the Christmas Day Pants Bomber Will Be Blogged Endlessly.

1. It was a completely serious terrorist attack intended to and capable of taking down a large jet above a major American city, so 9/11 is vividly back in our consciousness.

2. But no one — other than the bomber — was seriously hurt, so we can discount it or play with it and be flippant or political in ways that we would avoid if there were specific and numerous victims.

3. There are lurid details: A man set his own pants on fire and did who-knows-what to his genitalia.

4. It's happening with a new President, so there is much potential for turning around the usual political arguments and making accusations of hypocrisy.

5. Ass-covering officials are saying mockable things like "The system worked."

6. There's a hero to laud. Yay, heroes. Yay, Army of Davids, etc. etc.

7. It was Christmas!

8. Obama's in Hawaii.  He's trying to bask in the sun and the success — or seeming success — of the healthcare bill and now here's trouble. Attack him/defend him, etc. etc. 

9. We haven't figured out yet what to call the suspect — whose actual name (Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab or Abdulmutallab) is hard to remember or even to figure out how to spell. The Pants Bomber? I used that in my post title because I saw that no one was saying that yet, and I thought it would do well in Google searches. The Christmas Day Bomber? Abdul-mutilate-a-balls?

10. See? It's funny and it's terrible — all at once. And then you can get outraged at the people who laugh or laugh at the people who don't laugh or analyze the trajectories of outrageous humor and the criticism thereof. The possibilities are endless.

ADDED:

11. The guy was privileged, rich, and well-educated.

12. His father ratted on him. Intra-family conflict. Is this extra-great evidence — even his own father turned him in? Or are you thinking: Is the government going to stop you from flying if your parents call up and say you're a radical? Discuss!

13. If the plane had exploded where the detonation was attempted, what would the parts of the plane have hit? Was there an attempt to hit specific sites on the ground? Which ones? How close was the targeting?

14. Coverage. Is mainstream media covering the right things? Is it giving cover to the Obama administration?

15. Can we get somebody fired? Come on, try. Blogswarm!

The reaction to the Christmas Day attack should be exactly what it would have been if Abdulmutallab's device had not malfunctioned.

Instapundit writes:

HUFFINGTON POST: What’s wrong with this picture?

UPDATE: Marc Ambinder explains that it’s all a cunning plan. Ambinder’s a nice guy, but his nonstop spin has become embarrassing. I mean, when you’re getting more honest criticism from HuffPo....

That's very Instapunditly sharp and enigmatic, so let's dig into the details....

First, the HuffPo (Steve Marmel):

It's December 23 - I lug my tired butt to the airport, ready to leave for vacation. Carrying a bottle of very nice wine, I have to leave my place in the security line as I can't bring it as a carry-on, check it in a bag, get a special box, go through security again and hope I - and my fancy wine - arrive intact....

What kind of idiot imagines that "nice"/"fancy" wine is some exception to the well-known rule against carrying liquids onto the plane? You didn't lose your place in line. You stupidly got into line. I almost stopped reading. But, I see: His point is that he'd become oblivious to terrorism prior to the Christmas Day incident. People traveling after the attack had a properly post-9/11 edge. But...

Meanwhile, the president continues his vacation.

America lucked out this holiday season. It's as simple as that. Something terrible could have happened and It was the bravery of passengers, and the ineptitude of a would-be terrorist, that prevented it.

Did the passengers actually make a difference? The crew was there with fire extinguishers, and Abdulmutallab was stunned and badly burned when the passengers jumped him and dragged him down. It looks to me as though the defectiveness of the device was what saved that plane.

... It was luck.

Yes. Indeed.

And if you're like me - that scared the crap out of you. You probably wanted assurances. What will be done to prevent this? How are we reacting?

If you're like me, you're not looking for Attorney General Eric Holder, or Representative Pete King, to be telling you how it could have been worse or how it will be managed.

When the nation is attacked, I expect to be informed and hopefully calmed by the President of the United States.

So I ask, one more time - of this president who understands that how a message is delivered is just as important as what the message is - What is wrong with this picture?

The picture is of Obama in Hawaii. Sure, he can still say, We must stop the terror, but...



See the problem?

Yes, the president deserves a vacation....

But that vacation should have been over moments after the plane landed at noon on Christmas day, and everybody was starting to do the math that once again, al Qaeda tried to strike at this country.

And even if it were only for appearances - even if it were simply to make people know the commander-in-chief was in front of whatever buttons and levers are at his disposal to act and react to threats to this nation - the president should have been inconvenienced as well.

There are moments like these where it's important not to simply just do the work, or be told by others that the work is being done. We need to see it.

And that could have been done in Hawaii. Just not from the back nine.

Back to work, sir. Back to work.

I would go further, as I've said. I don't think the President should be out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It's too far away. And I don't care that a temporary White House can be set up anywhere. (By the way, I would like an itemization of the costs, in taxpayer dollars and in carbon emissions, of relocating the White House in Hawaii.)

Oh, hey... remember this?



What do you think Hillary is thinking about what's going on? That she would have been back in the White House. She wouldn't have left it to the Secretary of Homeland Security to do the talking on the Sunday shows. She wouldn't be all...



So get out of the tropical foliage, Barack, and fight terrorism. Even if it's all photo-ops for you, have some sense about what the photo op should be right now.

On to Marc Ambinder:

In his Farenheit 9/11, filmmaker Michael Moore juxtaposes images and words of a terrorist attack in Israel with President Bush's first words about the incident, spoken to a press pool on a golf course, with him leaning casually against a tree.

Ah, my association was the same as Ambinder's. Ambinder goes on to tell us that Obama has been golfing in Hawaii. And he went to the gym right after he was briefed about the attack. But Ambinder offers his usual pro-Obama spin:

There is a reason why Obama hasn't given a public statement. It's strategy....

[A]n in-person Obama statement isn't needed; Indeed, a message expressing command, control, outrage and anger might elevate the importance of the deed, would generate panic....

In a sense, he is projecting his calm on the American people....

So was Bush. It wasn't effective. Obama has had the opportunity to learn from Bush.

It's a tough and novel approach....

It's not novel, because Bush did it too. The only thing novel about it is doing it after Bush did it... ineffectively.

As I was writing this post, Instapundit put this up:

OUTCRY: “Napolitano should quit.” “I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the pevious appearance. It is her basic position that the ’system worked’ because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was ‘foiled’ by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically. I would wager that not one percent of Americans think the system is ‘working’ when terrorists successfully get bombs onto planes (and succeed in activating them).”

That's Jonah Goldberg.

UPDATE: More from an Obama voter: “Now, I know they are mopping up after a failure, and there is reason to want to portray the attack as coming out of the blue and unconnected to anything that should have been the subject of close monitoring, but — damn — I hope they are doing a better job than they look like they are doing. And if they don’t look like they’ve been doing a good job, then they aren’t even doing a good job of mopping up after their failure.”

Oh! Well, I agree with that. It's me. Thanks for the link, Glenn. Yeah, I voted for Obama. Am I sorry? I should be exactly the same amount of sorry I would be if Abdulmutallab's device had not malfunctioned. So, I must say: Yes, I'm sorry.

IN THE COMMENTS: Jason said:

I think everyone should watch that Hillary commercial all the way to the end. It seems different somehow.

Sorry for that too. Or not. LOL.

"Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Sunday that there was so far no evidence of a wider terrorist plot..."

Hmmm. But the administration also didn't see the warnings — relayed the suspect's own father — that Abdulmutallab was a threat. It's the administration's duty to see the "dots" and connect them. Now, I know they are mopping up after a failure, and there is reason to want to portray the attack as coming out of the blue and unconnected to anything that should have been the subject of close monitoring, but — damn — I hope they are doing a better job than they look like they are doing. And if they don't look like they've been doing a good job, then they aren't even doing a good job of mopping up after their failure.

Abdulmutallab should not have been on that plane!

IN THE COMMENTS: T J Sawyer said:

"The System Worked!"

Nappie, you're doing a heck of a job.

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab.

Some facts about the Christmas Day bomber:

1. He was an engineering student who lived in a $4 million apartment in London.

2. His father, a banker, warned American authorities about his son months ago. (How much will Obama be blamed?)

3. His bombing was interrupted by a passenger, Dutch video director Jasper Schuringa, who heard a noise and saw that "he was holding a burning object between his legs. 'I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away.'"

4. "He was staring into nothing."

ADDED: Mutallab had a 2-year visa that was issued in 2008, and "the initial information was not specific enough to raise alarms that he could potentially carry out a terrorist attack":

“The information was passed into the system, but the expression of radical extremist views were very nonspecific,” said the senior administration official, who has been briefed on the inquiry but spoke on condition of anonymity because it is continuing. “We were evaluating him, but the information we had was not a lot to go on.”

Satisfied with the job the administration is doing protecting us from terrorism? George Bush protected the American homeland after 9/11. Is Obama taking it seriously enough? Would Bush have kept Mutallab off that plane?

A Christmas day terror attack.

"The 23-year-old suspect lighted a powdery substance as the aircraft was preparing for landing, around noon, a federal counterterrorism official said. Two other passengers on the flight noticed, and a third person jumped on the man, the official said...."