i'm turning things back over to jessica yellin for more state of the union. >> happy 2010. we will try not to' laed, allied or demagogue on the show. i'm jessica yellin. john king is off today. this is "state of the union." >>> it's 11:00 a.m. eastern, time for the sound of sunday. 11 government officials, politicians and analysts have had their say. the president's top counterterrorism advisors and the former chairmen of the 9/11 commission. former hoerm land security secretary michael chernoff. we've watched the sunday shows so you don't have to. we'll break it all down with fran townsend, jeanne meserve and richard ben venista. "state of the union" "sount of sunday" for january 3rd. >>> the president's point man on the war on terror was on the defensive this morning over the christmas day terror plot. >> clearly the system didn't work. we had a problem in terms of why abdulmutallab got on that plane. there is no smoking gun piece of intel sdwre india intelligence out there. >>> the former chairman of the 9/11 commission says some of the blaeft rests at the white house be

jessica yellin what does this mean in washington? what does it marine for the obama administration that this is the one thing that was so, so high on their agenda in terms of solving, and it just seems they keep getting stuck on unemployment and jobs? >> they knew they had to come out of the box strong on jobs amend felt they did immediately after the new we're. the terrorist scare over christmas pushed back their jobs agenda a little bit. one of the white house officials is saying we know thousand walk and chew gum at the same time and they absolutely have to. no choice but to pivot and focus on jobs. and you saw them start to do that on friday with the president's comments, when he came out talking about green jobs and the focus there. expect a big push on the jobs bill that will move through the senate in the next four weeks. they have to get that done. politically and in terms of the economy and they know that. >> and you know, we can focus on green job, but we know that with 7.2 million jobs lost since the recession began, the p

jessica yellin at the coakley headquarters. this was not unexpected, was it, jessica? >> no, folks are disappointed but not surprised. they say they hope nationally democrats learned a lesson from this when their candidate did not tap into voter rage, did not articulate an important message. they say it is time for democrats to get a wake-up call and realize they have to run on the economy and in touch with the average worker. and that's what scott brown did so well in this election. i'll also add quickly, larry, that the circling firing squad as begun with national republicans accusing martha coakley of running a terrible campaign, and them shouting back with them having a terrible mood. >> larry: john king, we'll check in with you later, but ms. coakley was not the strongest of candidates, was she? >> no, she was not the strongest candidate but she was also running against the republicans. the democrats and other key races across the country are going to look at these results, and you already see a lot of statements from democrats saying, we can't sugar coat this, we

. >>> good morning, i'm jessica yellin. this is state of the union.are stories breaking this sunday morning. president obama's top counterterrorism adviser says human error allowed a terror suspect with explosives to board a u.s. airliner on christmas day. speaking on this program earlier today, john brennan said, government agencies had bits and pieces of information on the suspect, but failed to connect them together. brennan says there was no deliberate concealing of information between different government agencies. >>> brennan also says the u.s. embassy in yemen closed today because of threats by al qaeda to attack u.s. interests in that country. it's unclear when it will re-open. the british embassy in yemen also closed but may re-open tomorrow. yesterday president obama links the air terror suspect to an al qaeda affiliate based in yemen. those are your top stories on "state of the union." >>> up next, former cia analyst gives us his take on the failed terror plot and what cracks it reveals in our homeland security. michael scheuer gets the las