On Christmas day, an Islamic terrorist attempted to detonate an explosive on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Thankfully the attack failed—apparently because the device was flawed, or the terrorist was incompetent, or both—and the plane landed safely and everybody survived.

As is often the case, the terrorist took advantages of weaknesses in our airport security mechanisms. Preliminary information indicates that the terrorists smuggled a liquid explosive onto the plane in his rectum and assembled the device from its innocuous component parts in the airplane bathroom. The attack, however, was entirely preventable. The perpetrator’s father had warned the U.S. government about his son. The explosive being used was easily detectable. Even putting these facts aside, the man was traveling from a county with a major al-Qaeda presence (Yemen) to the United States without luggage—a major, huge, obvious red-flag.

Once the man tried to set off the device, passengers on the plane bravely leaped into action and detained him . . . but the airport security mechanisms in Amsterdam or elsewhere along the line clearly didn’t do what they were supposed to do. Contrary to the claims of many in the Barack Obama (D) administration, the system did not work. The system failed.

I’m not going to condemn Obama or his administration for this. Clearly there is work to do, and Obama has already announced that there will be an investigation and security procedures will be improved. Good. But we’re not stupid; don’t claim the ‘system worked’ when it didn’t!