The following excerpt doesn't come from the New York Post, National Review or the American Spectator. It comes rather from the New York Daily News and is yet another signal that Barack Obama's out-of-touch (and increasingly dangerous) performance as President is finally breaking through to even the mainstream press.
The attempt to blow Northwest Flight 253 out of the air was planned as an attack on the United States and very nearly succeeded in accomplishing that horrific goal. The moment demanded inspiring, decisive presidential leadership.
America waited four days for a glimmer.
President Obama's initial response Monday was too long in coming, too cool in delivery and too removed from the extreme gravity of the plot. Tuesday, he spoke more assertively, acknowledging what everyone else had long ago concluded: that unacceptable security failures had enabled 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to smuggle high explosives onto a Detroit-bound jet.
Before his first remarks on Monday, Obama had left a vacuum, and into that 76-hour empty space rushed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose ineptitude made a mockery of her position and threw millions of fliers into continuing states of confusion.
What the public was left with was a never-to-be-repeated case study in crisis mismanagement. It's time to get a grip, Mr. President...
The rest of the editorial is here.
