Christianity’s holiest day, a powerful group of Muslim terrorists tried to blow up an airliner and its 300+ passengers and crew over Detroit. Nothing which was supposed to prevent the attack worked. Disaster was averted only by a combination of the terrorists’ incompetence, the passengers’ immediate self-defense and sheer luck. (The airplane was severely damaged however.) 

To evade blame for this abysmal failure by the Obama Administration, Mr. Obama and his "Homeland Security" chief issued vainglorious declarations putting their own inimitable spin on matter. To put this in perspective, imagine that FDR and his officials had tried to put such a spin on the Pearl Harbor attack:

1) STATEMENT OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT:

Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 a date that will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by a few "isolated terrorists" having nothing to do w/ the Empire of Japan. By sheer coincidence, this lone band of criminals was flying Japanese warplanes off of Japanese warships. Due entirely to my work and the vigilance of my administration, this attempt to destroy our Pacific Fleet was a complete failure. Our fleet is still intact though now a few of its battleships are patrolling the bottom of Pearl Harbor instead of on top. The responsibility for any losses that we incurred rests entirely w/ my predecessor Herbert Hoover whom most Americans will recall left office only nine years ago.

2) STATEMENT OF SECRETARY OF WAR HENRY I. STIMSON:

The first point that needs to be emphasized is that there was no problem -- my system worked just fine. So what if a few of our battleships were sunk? In fact battleships are passe. Aircraft carriers are the wave of naval war in the future. And none of our carriers were sunk! Irresponsible critics keep harping and carping on the minor point that it was a lucky accident that none of our carriers were at Pearl when the attack occurred. But I emphatically repeat: none of our carriers were sunk – and the president and I claim credit for that! Moreover, I must point out that the vast majority of the sailors who survived when their ships sank could swim. While we haven’t actually done anything about it, we have been thinking about teaching all navy men to swim. Yes, our system worked because this is an Administration that is on top of everything!