I gave props to Hillary for keeping her head down after the flight 253 fiasco.

It turns out that 10 days to contemplate her response on behalf of the State Department just isn't enough time to come up with a politically astute response.

Secretary Clinton joined Janet Napolitano in glossing over the facts surrounding the Christmas Day attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253. Not to be outdone that all went well with her agency while the boss was on vacation, Secretary Clinton said that the State Department “fully complied with the requirements set forth in the interagency process” about sharing threat information.

What?

Fully complied? The State Department not only failed to share the threat information with a variety of agencies but those who had the information didn’t even act upon it themselves. In fact, Several State Department officials in Nigeria and Washington, DC didn’t even do the basic tasks expected of public servants working to protect Americans.

The State Department knew that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was an al Qaeda operative 35 days before he boarded a plane to Detroit. They could have revoked his visa at anytime during that period, but never told the Embassy Visa section about the problem. What's more, they didn't notify the UN, has required by Security Council Resolution 1735, which would have let every other country in the world know that this guy was bad news and not to let him on a plane. It goes without saying that they didn't let any other U.S. agencies know what was going on either.

Obama is incredibly fortunate that Congress is solidly in Democrat hands, because this practically begs for a Congressional investigation. Remember that Scooter Libby was sent to prison for lying to investigators about a leak that wasn't a leak--for nothing basically.

How long should we imprison federal officials who are criminally negligent in the performance of their duties?