The attempt to blow Northwest Flight 253 out of the air was planned as an attack on the United States and very nearly succeeded in accomplishing that horrific goal. The moment demanded inspiring, decisive presidential leadership.

America waited four days for a glimmer. (Emphasis added)

President Obama's initial response Monday was too long in coming, too cool in delivery and too removed from the extreme gravity of the plot.

Tuesday, he spoke more assertively, acknowledging what everyone else had long ago concluded: that unacceptable security failures had enabled 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to smuggle high explosives onto a Detroit-bound jet.

Before his first remarks on Monday, Obama had left a vacuum, and into that 76-hour empty space rushed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose ineptitude made a mockery of her position and threw millions of fliers into continuing states of confusion.

What the public was left with was a never-to-be-repeated case study in crisis mismanagement. It's time to get a grip, Mr. President.

The attempted bombing occurred at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Christmas. When finally Obama spoke after the weekend, he vowed to hunt down "all who were involved" and promised, as has become standard, to "use every element of our national power to disrupt, dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us."

Nothing less is required, and there can be no arguing with the stated mission.

Even so, Obama's description of Abdulmutallab as an "isolated extremist" was remarkable and disturbing. This radicalized young Nigerian is nothing of the sort. He operated, in fact, as an Al Qaeda-recruited, Al Qaeda-supplied, Al Qaeda-directed foot soldier - as, to put it directly, an enemy combatant, and not as the criminal "suspect" of Obama's description.

In similarly distant fashion, the President ordered up a "review" of how Abdulmutallab smuggled explosives onto the jet and a "review" of how he slipped through the government's various terror watch lists despite signals of clear and present danger.

Missing then was a statement about those obvious and unacceptable security cracks; the name, rank and serial number of the officials who would conduct the inquiries, and a deadline for completion and a report to the public. Tuesday, Obama filled in those rather basic blanks.

His seeming initial lack of urgency was uncharacteristic in a leader who calls himself a "deadline" executive for his practice of setting same in order to get things done. Most famously, Obama has established a deadline, albeit a slipping one, for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

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I like the happy faces of the Obamas.  Obviously, they were having a happy day on Christmas.

But it's time to get serious on protecting America.