That was quite a revealing — and understandable — public tantrum President Obama threw Tuesday.
Understandable, because the president has every right to be livid over the “potentially catastrophic breach of security” that nearly saw a terrorist bring down an airliner with 289 people aboard.
And revealing, because perhaps Obama has come to understand that he does not enjoy as much control over intelligence matters as he might have imagined.
Also, that the Islamist threat to America won’t be countered with mere words.
We suspect that Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush — who also was frustrated by intel shortcomings — feels sympathy with Obama’s frustration.
But the near-tragedy on final approach to Detroit must be more than a teachable moment for this president.
Obama was correct when he decried the “mix of human and systemic failure” that ignored a host of red flags and warning signs to let a self-proclaimed jihadist from Nigeria board a flight, the explosives undetected in his underwear.
Coming just a few months after 9/11, with security and intelligence officials still revamping their systems — as it did in the case of shoe-bomber Richard Reid — such a lapse might be understandable.
Coming more than eight years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it’s unforgivable.
Which means that it’s time to refocus America’s security efforts when it comes to deadly terrorists on board US aircraft.
Full-body searches and scans, restrictions on hand-held luggage and intensive questioning of passengers all help.
But the Christmas Day incident, which was thwarted only because of alert and courageous passengers, revealed still-gaping holes in airline security.
As the Reason Foundation’s Robert Poole puts it on the opposite page, US airline security is “fixated on keeping bad things — as opposed to bad people — off of airplanes.”
This must change.
And that won’t be easy.
It means broadening the “do not fly” list to include many more — if not all — of the 550,000 people currently in US databases as possible terrorist suspects.
Yes, those databases likely include a number of wholly innocent people. But it certainly contains many more people whose intentions are far less benign.
Who are, in fact, out to kill Americans.
After Detroit, it’s time to presume guilt, not innocence, regarding airline access.
No doubt this will outrage the likes of the ACLU and CAIR.
But better to have them criticizing what they consider unwarranted invasions of privacy than the rest of us expressing condolences for the loss of hundreds of innocent lives — simply because sufficient precautions weren’t taken.
Even the most stringent security measures, however, won’t work if the intelligence agencies responsible for screening out the terrorists aren’t up to the job.
And, in the case of bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, they clearly weren’t.
Consider: US intelligence had been warned about him, including by his own father. As early as August, the CIA was alerted to a person of interest referred to internally as “the Nigerian.”
But, as in the case of 9/11, the various agencies failed to share critical data.
As Obama said, that’s “totally unacceptable.” Not surprisingly, the guilty parties are hard at work — deflecting blame.
Barack Obama this week came face-to-face with Islamist extremism — and was humiliated by it.
Here’s hoping he takes the encounter for the learning experience it could be.