I accepted Harry's apology without question because I've known him for years, I've seen the passionate leadership he's shown on issues of social justice and I know what's in his heart. As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.

I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from and correcting these mistakes to make us safer. For ultimately, the buck stops with me. As president, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people. And when the system fails, it is my responsibility. In the never-ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary.

When a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas Day the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way. The bottom line is this: The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot … but our intelligence community failed to connect those dots. It is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged. That’s not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it.

We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable. We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us, whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland.

We are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people.

These are not small reforms; these are big reforms. If passed, this will be the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act passed in the 1930s and the most important reform of our health care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s.