Hmm, maybe it was meant as a pun.

In his first television interview since withdrawing as Obama's nominee to run the Transporation Security Administration, Erroll Southers make this puzzling observation to Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show Thursday --

SOUTHERS (referring to Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt): One of the things that everybody must understand is that this attack was debriefed by the foreign terrorist organizations that sent Mr. Abdulmutallab over here. They learned a great deal. We need to reverse-engineer what happened and think about what we would do to counter the emerging threat instead of yesterday's attack and having policies that are then driven and being reactive instead of really being thought out and being comprehensive in their scope.

MADDOW: In looking into some of your record and what you've worked on in the past today ...