Liberals terrorized by Americans

My latest American Spectator column:

When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to detonate an explosive aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, liberals were quick to warn against the clear and present danger.
It wasn't the threat of al Qaeda-trained bombers blowing up Detroit-bound planes that concerned them. Rather, liberals feared that Americans might blame the Obama administration for failing to protect them from terrorists or -- perhaps even worse -- demand action against the violent extremists who want to kill us all . . .

Read the whole thing. Today, Janet Napolitano admitted that the system failed:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the aviation security system failed when a young man on a watch list with a U.S. visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a fight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano said her words had been taken out of context. She said Monday on NBC's "Today" show that "our system did not work in this instance."

Meanwhile, Napolitano's assertion that this was not "part of anything larger" gets an asterisk in Memphis:

On Christmas Eve, Mohamed Ibrahim was arrested by police in Memphis, TN after allegedly making bomb threats in several local businesses. Witnesses told police that he told them he was a Muslim and that he was starting a jihad.

Robert Spencer sees the Abdulmutallab case as evidence of an epic fail:

Educated at the British International School in Lome, Togo, he was a classic recipient of Western largesse designed to win over the loyalties of Muslims. Yet his encounter with kindly non-Muslim Westerners spending their lives to educate him and his peers did not blunt the fervor of his jihadist fanaticism. . . .

Read the rest.