Thwarted Attack?

I'm having a hard time understanding why Government officials are saying that the attempted car bombing in NYC over the weekend was thwarted? The attempted bombing was not thwarted, it failed. A citizen did notice the SUV smoking and alerted authorities. That was after the detonation failed. Had the bomb been well constructed, nobody would have noticed before death and destruction ensued. New York and we as a nation were very lucky. It's unfortunate that the Obama administration is trying to take credit for thwarting this attempted attack. This gives people that impression that we are not as susceptible to terrorist attacks as we really are.