THE PRESIDENT SPEAKS – AT 5:01 P.M. ET:  President Obama has just addressed the nation on the failed Christmas day airline bombing, and its aftermath.

It was a pretty good statement.  The president, as TV pundits pointed out, sounded angry.  Whether he was or not is an open question.  He conceded that we had all the information needed to block the guy who got on the plane with a bomb, but did not use the information skillfully.  In effect, he contracted his own terrorism adviser, John Brennan, who'd said on Sunday that there was no "smoking gun."  There were several guns that were smoking.

The president promised greater effectiveness and accountability.  There were no details and no questions were allowed.  Of course, Mr. Obama had to get in one dig at President Bush – that's required in all Obama speeches – by asserting that Guantanamo was one of the reasons that Al Qaeda got started on the Arabian peninsula.  And, of course, there was no specific mention of who we're fighting.  Words like "jihadism" or "Islamo-fascism" were missing.  It would be like President Roosevelt, in 1944, refusing to name the country we were fighting when we landed at Normandy.  Just anonymous hostiles.

Some pundits felt that there now has to be a personnel shakeup in the administration.  We'll see.  Terror incidents tend to outrage us, but they're quickly forgotten, as we're advised to "move on."   However, Mr. Obama had praise for no one.

The sheer number of terror incidents recently, including the successful attack at Fort Hood, certainly suggests that there will be more in 2010.  The president, and his people, are surely aware of the political costs.  And they must surely be aware of the perception that this is an administration weak on national security.  The president's angry statement today was a good first step.  The question, as always with the Obamans, is whether there'll be a second.

January 5, 2010