After the Underwear Bomber’s scorcher of a screw-up, Ann Coulter remarked in her column that it is harder to get on the no-fly list than it was to get into Studio 54 back in the 1970s.

Well, while his attempt to head for the tall timber didn’t get off the ground, Faisal of recent Times Square fame did manage to get aboard the airplane.

The no-fly list failed to keep the Times Square suspect off the plane. Faisal Shahzad had boarded a jetliner bound for the United Arab Emirates Monday night before federal authorities pulled him back.

The night’s events, gradually coming to light, underscored the flaws in the nation’s aviation security system, which despite its technologies, lists and information sharing, often comes down to someone making a right call.

Literally.

As federal agents closed in, Faisal Shahzad was aboard Emirates Flight 202. He reserved a ticket on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, paid cash on arrival and walked through security without being stopped. By the time Customs and Border Protection officials spotted Shahzad’s name on the passenger list and recognized him as the bombing suspect they were looking for, he was in his seat and the plane was preparing to leave the gate.

The part about his reserving a ticket on the way to the airport, paying cash on arrival and then strolling casually while whistling walking through security is enough to make anyone who has travelled as extensively by air, especially post 9/11, as I have stop and take a few seconds out to be surprised — very surprised.

Unless the system has been severely downgraded under Secretary of Homeland Insecurity Janet Napolitano, travellers who reserve flights at the last minute, and you’ve got to figure that this one was one way — one way flights are pretty much strike two with the last minute bit — and then pay for the ticket with cash are subject to immediate scrutiny. One would think the fine folks at the airline would have checked thoroughly to see if Faisal Shahzad’s name was a no-fly, and in this case definitely checked for new list entries.

Even given that the airline in question was not a U.S. carrier, well…

But it didn’t. At the last minute, the pilot was notified, the jetliner’s door was opened and Shahzad was taken into custody.

After authorities pulled Shahzad off the plane, he admitted he was behind the crude Times Square car bomb, officials said. He also claimed to have been trained at a terror camp in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region of Waziristan, according to court documents.

That raised increased concern that the bombing was an international terror plot.

Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, was charged Tuesday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Saturday evening’s failed Times Square bombing. According to a federal complaint, he confessed to buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it into the busy area where he tried to detonate it.

The Obama administration played down the fact that Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, had made it aboard the plane. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wouldn’t talk about it, other than to say Customs officials prevented the plane from taking off. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the security system has fallback procedures in place for times like this, and they worked.

The Obama administration played down the fact….Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wouldn’t talk about it…White House spokesman…and they worked…

Yes, as Napolitano, in the aftermath of the Underwear Bomber’s debut, tolf us that “the system worked”.

So far, the only thing that’s now averted two disasterous terrorist attacks has been the incompetence of the terrorists themselves, which doesn’t say much for the Obama Administration’s protective efforts.

And these incompetents, such as they were, managed to not only come close to accomplishing their objectives, but also to get aboard two airplanes, one inbound, the other outbound.

Napolitano’s luck has thus far been good, but eventually, one terrorist will come along who actually knows what he’s doing or isn’t packing a dud, and then even the most obtuse American will see and know just how much the Obama Administration is placing the American people at risk in the name of politics.

The rest of the linked article is here.