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The Christmas Day bombing attempt on a U.S.-bound airplane continues to dominate headlines and the Obama administration agenda.
 
Here’s part of President Obama’s speech Thursday detailing the security failures that lead to the incident.

“…the U.S. government had the information scattered throughout the system to potentially uncover this plot and disrupt the attack. Rather than a failure to collect or share intelligence, this was a failure to connect and understand the intelligence that we already had.”

Mr. Obama accepted responsibility for the security failings and he didn’t blame any one individual or agency for the communication breakdown.

We’re taking a look at reactions on his speech from The Wall Street Journal, the "Don Imus Show," Der Spiegel, and the BBC.

First, a Wall Street Journal bureau chief says people who wanted to see heads roll will be been disappointed.

“He spent most of his time talking about the bureaucracy and anybody who expected that this was going to be a major speech overhauling the national security process of the United States was hoping for too much.”

On the "Don Imus Show," Chris Wallace says that Mr. Obama’s speech showed just how poorly his administration reacts to serious issues.

“The fact is that he and his team, their initial instinct after the Christmas Day attempt was to underplay it, ‘things are OK, the system worked.’ It took them about four tries to get it right, which this is a very serious deal.  People are scared, and we're going to be upset and angry, and he finally got it right.”

A writer for the German news magazine Der Spiegel disagrees. He says Mr. Obama sounded pretty tough.  The question is: “How much Bush is there in Obama?”

“This speech leaves no doubt as to Obama's determination. It aims to counteract the impression that he was not tough enough in the fight against the enemy.”

On the BBC, analyst Ted Koppel says that toughness is really an overreaction – and that’s good for al Qaeda.

“We have responded so intensely that they must be sitting there where ever they are sitting these days in their caves, saying ‘not bad. If we can do that with a failed attempt, just think what we could do with a successful one.’”

So, do you think Obama sounded tough enough? Too tough? Should someone have been fired over the attempted attack?

And, what changes do you think need to be made to make flying safer?

Writer: Paula Hunt