Some moments have come to define this administration’s level of incompetence and detachment from reality.  For Janet Napolitano of Homeland Security, the defining moment is when she claimed “the system worked” shortly after a man came within seconds of blowing up a commercial airliner having only been narrowly thwarted by other passengers.  She soon retracted her statement, however the damage had essentially been done.  Coming from the administration that referred to the wars as “overseas contingency operations” and terrorism as “man caused disasters,” it became clear that they cared more about process than substance.  What was important to them was correctly completing arbitrary screenings as opposed to making sure that terrorism is thwarted.  It’s really a typical liberal mindset: The intentions far outweigh the results.  Practical real-world application of experience is replaced by academic experimentation.

Now comes the news that a man in Houston boarded a plane with a loaded pistol despite having gone through the TSA screening process:

Said the gun owner:

Houston businessman Farid Seif says it was a startling discovery. He didn’t intend to bring a loaded gun on a flight out of Houston and can’t understand how TSA screeners didn’t catch it.

“I mean, this is not a small gun,” Seif said. “It’s a .40 caliber gun.”

Unfortunately, this is par for the course.

From the ABC report:

Authorities tell ABC News the incident is not uncommon, but how often it occurs is a closely guarded government secret. Experts say every year since the September 11 attacks, federal agencies have conducted random, covert tests of airport security.

A person briefed on the latest tests tells ABC News the failure rate approaches 70 percent at some major airports. Two weeks ago, TSA’s new director said every test gun, bomb part or knife got past screeners at some airports.

So, after all of these calls for sacrifice in the name of security, it turns out that the TSA can’t do its job as well as a bouncer at a night club.

It serves as an example of why people like me are so incensed at the current state of TSA screenings.  Pulling people aside and searching them is an excellent way to administer security; Pulling people aside at random to search them is security theater which does about the same amount as doing nothing.  In fact, the only thing that these searches have over doing nothing is that a TSA agent might get to see a woman’s breasts.

If 70% failure rate even after completely depriving people of their right to privacy is the system working, then my car is about to get a lot more mileage.

Don’t let it come to this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Key-27CXHBA[/youtube]