Obama's Kitchen Has Too Many Chefs

(AP) - The US has for too long failed to protect the security of its computer networks, President Obama said today, announcing he will name a new cyber czar to take on the job. This is a "transformational moment" for the country, Obama said, with computer networks probed and attacked millions of times a day. "We're not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country." No word yet on when the new czar will be named. More»

44 enjoys rare mix of crisis, popularity, and an office at its peak

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama enters office today with a realistic shot of becoming one of the most powerful presidents in history, writes Barton Gellman in the Washington Post. Historians and officials in the outgoing and incoming administrations agree the presidency is already at or near an apex of power, and Obama’s popularity, combined with the many crises he faces, could push his authority yet higher. More»

...because he's not terribly interested in fighting it

(NEWSER) - Democrats saw the way Mitt Romney's super PAC destroyed Newt Gingrich in Iowa, and it terrified them, because President Obama's super PAC—or as Politico terms it, "not-so-super PAC"—doesn't have the muscle for anything like that. "It's like when China got the bomb," says one Democrat close to the PAC, "We thought we were the ones with cash supremacy. That's clearly not the case." Obama's Priorities USA Action has just $5 million in the bank, less than half Romney's $12 million. More»

Semi-secret assassination program has expanded greatly in his term

(NEWSER) - In the five years before President Obama took office, America’s drones launched 44 strikes, all confined to Pakistan, killing about 400 people. But during his Oval Office tenure there have been almost 240 strikes, killing at least four times as many people, and the US has built dozens of secret drone facilities, with bases in at least six countries, the Washington Post reports, in an in-depth look into what it terms Obama’s “emerging global apparatus for drone killing.” Though the technology was already developing under President George W Bush, Obama has greatly expanded its use. More»

Balks against State Dept., says US has apologized enough

(NEWSER) - President Obama has decided against issuing a formal apology to Pakistan over a NATO airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, even as the State Department insists he must do so to salvage relations with Pakistan, officials tell the New York Times . The administration is instead backing the Defense Department, which thinks the US has apologized enough, and wants Obama to wait at least until its internal investigation of the incident is complete. More»