links for 2009-07-29

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urged Americans on Wednesday to join a "collective fight against terrorism" that combines the efforts of individuals, companies and local, state and foreign governments.

Answering critics who have accused the Obama administration of downplaying the risk of terrorist attacks, Napolitano said the threat has not abated and outlined an approach that emphasizes burden-sharing as federal spending and political support for post-Sept. 11 security measures wane.

"I am sometimes asked if I think complacency is a threat. I believe the short answer is 'yes,' " Napolitano said, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York before visiting the World Trade Center site destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"But I think a better question is this: Has the U.S. government done everything it can to educate and engage the American people? The answer is 'no,' " she said.
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I thought after Bush there was no more war on terror?

The U.S. Treasury sold $39 billion in five-year debt Wednesday in an auction that drew poor demand, raising worries over the cost of financing the government's burgeoning budget deficit.

The so-called generic ballot question was also very close. Asked whether they would support a Democrat or a Republican for Congress in 2010 if the election were held today, 42 percent said they would choose a Democrat and 43 percent a Republican, a difference well within the poll's margin of error (plus or minus 3.4 percentage points for each number in each question).

Forty-four percent of Americans believe a new healthcare reform law would improve medical care in the U.S., contrasted with 26% who say it would improve their personal medical care. Forty-seven percent of Americans believe reform will expand access to healthcare in the U.S., while 21% say it will expand their own access to healthcare.

In recent months, former Bush speechwriter and NewMajority.com editor David Frum has taken on conservative talkers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh — the latter who became the subject of a Newsweek cover story.

And yesterday, Frum described talk show host Mark Levin's book, "Liberty and Tyranny," as "suffused with this message of doom" under the headline: "Stop Whining!"

That didn't go over well with Levin, who blasted Frum on the air today as a "complete and utter fraud" and boasted about selling more copies of their latest books (900,000 to 5,000).

"You sit there with that permanent smirk on your face and contribute nothing," Levin said.

The White House may only have one of its top officials to blame for its difficulty in passing healthcare, one liberal California Democrat asserted Tuesday.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) blamed now-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's work as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), during which he worked to recruit many centrist candidates, resulting in landslide Democratic victories, for difficulties facing House leaders trying to pass reform legislation.

"That may be difficult for Rahm Emanuel, because remember, he recruited most of them," Waters said during an interview on MSNBC when asked if the White House could lean on centrist, Blue Dog Democrats to pass reform legislation.

"Now the chickens have come home to roost," she added.

Facing the first real rough patch of his presidency, President Obama and his supporters are once again resorting to a tried-and-true tactic: attacking George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

In his White House press conference last week, Mr. Obama referred to the Bush era at least nine times, three times lamenting that he "inherited" a $1.3 trillion debt that has set back his administration's efforts to fix the economy.

With the former president lying low in Dallas, largely focused on crafting his memoirs, Mr. Obama has increasingly attempted to exploit Mr. Bush when discussing the weak economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the difficulty closing the military prison at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

As he took power, Mr. Obama promised a "new era of responsibility" that would transcend partisan politics.