'He Didn't Let a Little Terrorism Interrupt His Vacation'

We're all well aware Barack Obama missed the 3 a.m. wake-up call on Christmas after news came out about the failed terrorist attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his aides didn't wake him for several hours. He of course needed his rest for the next round of golf.

That's bad enough. Now we discover the Director of National Counterterrorism Center decided his ski vacation was too important to interrupt and remained on vacation rather than return to Washington.

We really are in the very best of hands.

The top official in charge of analyzing terror threats did not cut short his ski vacation after the underwear bomber nearly blew up an airliner on Christmas Day, the Daily News has learned.

Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center since 2007, decided not to return to his agency's "bat cave" nerve center in McLean, Va., until several days after Christmas, two U.S. officials said.

"People have been grumbling that he didn't let a little terrorism interrupt his vacation," said one of the sources.

The NCTC, the post-9/11 clearinghouse for intelligence to detect terror plots against the U.S., is under intense scrutiny for failing to "connect the dots" on Nigerian bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Leiter's spokesman declined to say when the terror-center chief returned to Washington and fully retook the helm of his analysis agency, which is near CIA headquarters just outside the nation's capital.

"It is our policy to not make our director's schedule available to the public," center spokesman Carl Kropf said in an e-mail.

Leiter has long been well-regarded, and he was not the only official in the homeland security orbit to skip town for vacation during the holidays. President Obama himself stayed in Hawaii until Jan. 4.

But Leiter's decision to stay close to the ski slopes instead of his headquarters - ground zero for defending the nation against terror - has raised eyebrows among intelligence officials, who have been scrambling since Dec. 25 to figure out what went wrong and plug the holes.

Leiter - appointed by President George W. Bush - already ranked high in the buzz over whose heads could eventually end up on Obama's chopping block.

Well, at least they can blame Bush.

Leiter sounds like a loose cannon and will probably be a fall guy when and if Obama ever holds anyone accountable.

An affable ex-Navy pilot, Leiter - like Obama - was editor of the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for liberal Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and was a career Justice Department prosecutor before Bush appointed him NCTC director.

But Leiter has been indiscreet too. He once blabbed in a bar that Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty was "the dumbest public official I've ever met."

On Jan. 2, Leiter surprised many Obama administration officials with his first statement on the Detroit bombing attempt - eight days after it happened.

Leiter said the plot was typical of "insidious terrorist threats we face," and said Al Qaeda continues "to refine their methods to test our defenses and pursue an attack on the homeland."

That same day, National Public Radio had aired an interview - taped before Christmas - in which Leiter said it is "harder and harder for us to detect" Al Qaeda's improved capabilities.

"We're not going to stop every attack," he predicted, ominously. "Americans have to very much understand that it is impossible to stop every terrorist event. But we have to do our best."

Our best obviously isn't good enough.

Hot Air links. Thanks!

Thanks also to Ed Morrissey for the link here.