Facts are hard things. Lieberman noted some of them ("There have been three successful evasions of America's homeland defenses in the last year, the individual in Little Rock who walked in and shot a U.S. Army recruiter, Hasan at Fort Hood, and now Abdulmutallab in -- in Detroit, in the airplane") on This Week:

We're not out to protect anybody or attack anybody. We're out to fix what went wrong on December 25th and to note that, in this year, last year, 2009, our homeland -- there were -- there were more than a dozen attempts to attack our homeland, and three of them broke through. The -- the Detroit bombing could have been the most devastating terrorist attack on the U.S. since 9/11 if the -- the -- the explosive had gone off.

As Joe Biden amongst others predicted, Obama was sure to be tested. He has been has been found wanting. Why? In part because he not only"re-calibrated" the relationship between anti-terrorist vigilance and terrorist rights but also undermined those charged with protecting the homeland. Thus says not merely moi but, when pushed by David Gregory, Michael Hayden:

MR. GREGORY: So my question is do you believe he's adequately prosecuting this war against al-Qaeda and terrorists?

GEN. HAYDEN: There are honest differences. Clearly, this past summer with regard to some CIA activity, interrogation memos from the office of legal counsel, the CIIG report, the question of a special prosecutor, I actually think that's harmed our overall effort, all right? But that's a personal view. That's the decision the president has to make. We should not overly politicize things that are essentially security in nature. But we do need political guidance that will be the product of our political process.