Public Service Announcement: Janet Napolitano Is An Idiot

So Napolitano went on TV trumpeting how the failed Detroit Pantybomber incident was proof that "the system" worked. This is a patent untruth -- and, worse, is a blatant attempt to whitewash what actually happened. The system DID NOT work. We were lucky (the Pantybomber device failed), and we were self-reliant: passengers and crew took down Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab themselves. Before that moment, everyone from intelligence agencies to the TSA failed miserably. The guy managed to (a) get on the plane at all, and (b) get on the plane with explosives.

Read this and then this, which has the following piquant statement:

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, told CNN yesterday that "one thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked." Yet the terrorist screening system seems to have failed in at least two crucial ways: first, in failing to revoke a visa to the U.S. that Mr. Abdulmutallab had obtained last June despite a later warning to U.S. consular officials from his own father that he was becoming radicalized and might have terror network ties; and second, in not adding him to a no-fly list from a lower-level watch list.
The episode is a reminder that the fight against terrorism requires even more interagency cooperation, and Congress should investigate whether such communication was lacking in this case. No one should leap to conclusions about who is responsible for any mistakes, but Ms. Napolitano isn't reassuring when she utters happy talk that it all "went very smoothly." The day was saved not because of the antiterror "system" but because the explosive failed to ignite and because a Dutch passenger and flight attendants acted heroically to subdue the man, put out the fire and detach the explosive.
The lesson here is the same as Flight 93 on 9/11 and shoe-bomber Richard Reid, which is that civilians willing to act in their own self-defense are a crucial part of "homeland security." The willingness of passengers and crew to identify potential threats seems more useful than more onerous airport screening, which only gives terrorists the satisfaction of knowing they have made air travel even more unbearable. The new rule to keep passengers in their seats in the final hour of some flights seems all too typical of arbitrary rules that inconvenience innocents but not terrorists.

Well, DUH. I suppose this doesn't need SAYING, but I'll say it anyway: self-defense is SELF-defense, not waiting and hoping for some faceless, clunky, slow, outpaced government bureaucracy to save you when push comes to shove, you're in a tough situation, and you have an opportunity to do something for yourself. Note new tag "rugged individualism." Anyhoo, as Steyn did just say,

And remember, whatever new rules they pass about not using the bathroom in the last three hours of the flight, when you're sitting in seat 7B and the guy in 7C starts doing something goofy, the Federal Government won't be up there with you.

If Napolitano really thinks that the "system works" when clearly so many balls were dropped, then she should be fired. More here. By the way, Ace of Spades, incandescent with rage, sarcastically gives the system the same grade that Obama gave himself: a B+.

Let's end with a shout-out to the heroic Dutch passenger who tackled the Pantybomber. I can't find his name yet, so I'll just call him "The Flying Dutchman" for now and raise a toast to him.

UPDATE 1: Great comment: "Once again, airline passengers 1, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) 0. And the response of the TSA? To further punish the passengers, of course. . . . What next? In addition to deshoeing ourselves, will we have to drop trou in security?"

UPDATE 2: Napolitano concedes to reality. Heh.