Sunday Show Synopsis: "The System Worked"

"The system worked," said the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano. Did those words really escape the barriers of her teeth? Was this a talking point? Certainly, the passengers worked... certainly, the crotch-rocket didn't work... certainly, the system went into high gear after the failure of the system.... maybe parts of the system worked, if by working, one means that inputs begat outputs and an airplane of passengers wasn't blasted out of the sky.  If she had said, "the system worked, but it's proven inadequate," then there'd be less heat.   But... 

The news:  The White House will conduct a ship to stern review of the terrorist watch list concept, and another review of the detection technology used to screen passengers. That was announced by press Robert Gibbs on various programs. Still no public statement from President Obama (except for a statement of condolence on the passing of lawyer Percy Sutton). BTW: the airline bomber was already banned from Britain.

On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Joe Lieberman suggested taking some sort of "pre-emptive" action against locales in Yemen. And Rep. Peter Hoekstra thought it was fair to blame the Obama administration for this attack.

Senate Minority Mitch McConnell refused to say whether Republicans would call for a repeal of the health care reform legislation, though he did promise that it'd make for a hell of an issue in the next two elections.

Rep. Jim Clyburn tells Face The Nation's John Dickerson that "yes," he could vote for a health care bill that does not include a public option.

Paul Krugram tells Jake Tapper that there's a reasonable chance of an economic contraction in 2010.

The quotes:

Rep. Peter King, on Face The Nation:

Secretary Napolitano said the system worked. The fact is the system did not work. And we have to find a bipartisan way to fix it. He made it on the plane with explosives and he detonated the explosives. If that had been successful, the plane would have come down and we would have had a Christmas Day massacre with almost 300 people murdered. So this came within probably seconds or inches of working. And thank God there were brave people on board, and thank God that the terrorist was not able to successfully carry out the detonation. But he got right to the one-yard line

Napolitano, on State of the Union:

 The traveling public is very, very safe in this air environment