Well, a sure sign that the war on terrorism is bogged down: people stop worrying about what needs to be done, and start worrying about what has already happened. It's bad news when people feel that they have the time for throwing blame around -- and the need to do so. The first step of that process: lay the groundwork for explaining why it wasn't your fault. Tell everyone how you foresaw the attacks on 9/11, and how you developed a plan that might have defeated Al Qaeda before 9/11, but how you were undermined by incompetent FBI officials, shortsighted State Department officials (okay, that part is plausible), bureaucratic infighting between the CIA and armed forces, and the awkwardness of the transition from Clinton to Bush.
I'm certainly not suggesting that something can't be learned from these circumstances. Certainly there needs to be a strong hand in charge of defense policy, to keep the various agencies from working at cross purposes. But the lesson Time wants to draw, apparently, is that people should listen to the guy who, in hindsight, turns out to have been right.