I agree with you. This administration has made two particularlly brilliant moves since September 11.
The first was the grounding of all flights. I don't think they saw that one coming.
The second, is the coalition. In a sense, they are using the coalition as an interrogation of the governments of other countries in order to get a read on them. This will serve us well in the future...even beyond the terrorist "smoke outs."
Another miscalculation is their estimation of the law enforcement response. I'm no fan of the FBI, but they appear to have found a lot of evidence when they finally went looking. I think Bin Laden actually bought the press reports about FBI incompetance (CIA too). His minions were sloppy and left far too much evidence laying around.