For those who missed the President’s address live, the White House has posted a copy of the remarks as written.

The NYT Caucus blog reports that the president’s remarks were delayed twice this afternoon because “declassifying the security review took far longer than expected.”

Patrick at Political Byline chimes in: “I look forward to seeing what the Government does. Speeches are nice, but let’s see what the action is.”

No suprise that the President’s Trumanesque “buck stops with me” line is leading early reports. Reference: Washington Post, Politico, and The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

Counter-terrorism Director Brennan joins Obama on the buck-stops-here bandwagon in a post-speech press briefing: “I told the president today that I let him down … I told him that I will do better and that we will do better as a team.”

Taylor Marsh likes this line from the President: It’s “not time for partisanship, it’s time for citizenship.”

Andrew Sullivan doesn’t remember anyone in the Bush administration ever saying “the buck stops with me” in the aftermath of the shoe bomber, Richard Reid. That being noted, Sullivan is not entirely pleased with the President: He thinks the Commander in Chief should fire some people.

Ben Smith has links to PDF’s of (i) the White House’s review of the attack and (ii) the President’s directives to the agencies.

CNN has this wrap-up report, including a summary of what the President identified as “three failures in the nation’s intelligence system” and “four reforms” he has ordered, in addition to the accountability reviews he has required.

ORIGINAL POST

CNN had the live feed from the President’s address this afternoon. It started at 4:30 pm ET, later than originally expected. Even with that delay, I was late to watching it and distracted by various interruptions during the portion I saw. Such is the life of a volunteer journalist. Regardless, here are a few highlights from what I did hear. I’ll update this later with links to other reports and a sampling of reax from around the ‘sphere.

President Obama is setting up internal accountability reviews at the various intelligence/counter-terrorism agencies and John Brennan, his top counter-terrorism adviser, will monitor those reviews.

The President channeled Harry Truman, saying: “Ultimately, the buck stops with me.”

In what we can only assume were two sentences scripted specifically for the ears of former VP Cheney, the President said: “We are at war. We are at war with al Qaeda.”

Moments later, he said the federal government must be careful not to trample civil liberties in the process of protecting its citizens: “We will not (give into) a siege mentality … We will define the character of our country, not (al Qaeda).”