DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano isn't personally responsible for the security lapses that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to nearly bring down a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day. But she is responsible for going on national television yesterday and repeatedly claiming - contrary to the evidence and the truth - that "the system worked."

It's fine for Napolitano to want to reassure the American public that the skies are safe. That's part of her job, too. But she should be smart enough to find a way of doing that without treating the American people like a bunch of morons and dupes.

Clearly, when a person who has been flagged for investigation of being a suspected terrorist (alerted to the presence of US officials by his father, no less) manages to get through security and take a seat on a US-bound airliner with a bomb strapped to his crotch, the system is not working the way it's designed to.

The reason we didn't have a major terror attack over Detroit three days ago is because of the heroism of the passengers on Flight 253 and the fact Abdulmutallab's bomb had a faulty trigger. Neither of those things are part of "the system" that the government manages to ensure (to the best of its ability) that the public is safe from terrorists when they get on an airplane.

Despite sufficient warnings, that system failed - and the Secretary of Homeland Security made a fool of herself by going on television yesterday and asserting the opposite.

UPDATE: Napolitano corrects herself - but not before using the weaselly and untrue excuse that her comment yesterday was "taken out of context." Again, the DHS Secretary appears to believe the American public are a bunch of morons.

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