Why, when there is a threat of an attack, is the President not told?

What's wrong with this picture:

The president was told during a private briefing on Tuesday morning while vacationing here in Hawaii that the government had a variety of information in its possession before the thwarted bombing that would have been a clear warning sign had it been shared among agencies, a senior official said.

Two officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen before Friday that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda there were talking about “a Nigerian” being prepared for a terrorist attack. While the information did not include a name, officials said it would have been evident had it been compared with information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit on Christmas Day.

The government also had more information about where Mr. Abdulmutallab had been and what some of his plans were.

Would someone please explain to me why, when intelligence agencies have evidence that there is someone being prepared for a terrorist attack, that the President is not told until FOUR DAYS AFTER THE ATTEMPT? Hell, even George W. Bush was notified in August 2001 that something was being prepped to go down. That he chose to ignore it doesn't mean he wasn't told. But if Barack Obama is telling the truth, then there is something very strange going on within our intelligence agencies. These agencies are charged with gathering information to anticipate and stop people like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from getting on a plane armed with explosives. That they didn't manage to put the pieces together, even after there were plenty of pieces back in 2001 that they didn't put together, is disturbing enough. But that they had the pieces and didn't think the President needed to be informed is even worse. Perhaps they got so used to George W. Bush, who genuinely didn't give a shit. Or perhaps there are elements in the intelligence community who know that an attack on this country would justify the Republican meme of "Barack Obama is a wuss" -- and ensure a return to Republican governance in 2010. And what's worse is I don't know which is a scarier prospect. But something is very, very rotten in the bowels of Washington. And Americans are going to be the collateral damage.