After, INCREDIBLY, Napolitano claimed "the system worked", Homeland Security backs down in face of the obvious..

http://tinyurl.com/ycv3xgb
Napolitano concedes airline security system failed By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed when a young man on a watchlist with a U.S. visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.... A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano backtracked, saying her words had been taken out of context.
"Our system did not work in this instance," she said on NBC's "Today" show. "No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."...On Sunday, Napolitano said, "One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked." On Monday, she said she was referring to the system of notifying other flights as well as law enforcement on the ground about the incident soon after it happened.
The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee took issue with Napolitano's initial assessment. Airport security "failed in every respect," Rep. Peter King of New York said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "It's not reassuring when the secretary of Homeland Security says the system worked."****Reviewing her facing the TV camera and making her absurd claim that everything worked as it was supposed to ("the passengers, the flight crew,the subsequent warnings to other flights...") it's hard to credit the "out of context" remark. This is the Homeland Security chief who eschews the use of "terrorism" in favor of "manmade disasters" ( not even logical since it doesn't even distinguish between deliberate and accidental ones ) and the "war on terror" with "overseas contingency operations." (Of course it should really be WWI - War With Islamists.) ****
http://tinyurl.com/yamudq4
Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
...the White House is trying very hard to get out in front of the would-be Christmas bomber story. The head of the Department of Homeland Security isn't helping. I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the previous 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). Probably even fewer think it's fair that they have to take off their shoes, endure delays and madness while a known Islamic radical — turned in by his own father — can waltz onto a plane (and into the country). DHS had no role whatsoever in assuring that this bomb didn't go off. By her logic if the bomb had gone off, the system would have "worked" since it has done everything right.
Napolitano has a habit of arguing that DHS is a first responder outfit. Its mission is to deal with "man-caused-disasters" afer they occur. It appears she really believes it. If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patently unqualified hack.
Here she is her own words, over at RealClearPolitics...