In a word, that’s what a top Democrat attributes his party’s loss of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1994 election after a 40-year reign.

“We were pretty cocksure of what was — would be,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Looking ahead to next November’s election, Hoyer said, “we are not asleep at the switch — as we were” in 1994.

Democrats are busy gearing up for a tough battle with Republicans, who lost the House back to Democrats in 2006, and are itching to return to power. “Democrats have been working very hard from the beginning of the year with the realization that next year will be a significantly contested year,” Hoyer told reporters.

Democrats control the House, 258-177, and face a headwind. The party in power typically loses congressional seats in the first election after a new president takes over.

Hoyer declined to offer any Election Day prediction other than, “I don’t think we are going to lose the majority.”

The chief issue is expected to be the economy, which features a jobless rate of 10.2 percent, the highest in 26 years.

The American people know that President Barack Obama inherited the ailing economy from his predecessor, Republican President George W. Bush, but the public is also demanding better fiscal times, Hoyer said.

“Americans have a lot of angst, a lot of anger, a lot of fear, a lot of concern about the economy,” he said. “Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, all the polls show that jobs are the major issue.”

The Democratic Congress has helped slowdown job loss but needs to prompt overall employment growth, he said. “If jobs don’t get into the positive numbers, people are going to continue to be concerned and when they are concerned, they’re looking for someone new.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a separate appearance, noted concern about the escalation of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But Pelosi said she, too, expects the economy to be the top issue in next year’s election.

And she indicated she doesn’t expect her party’s liberal and largely anti-war base to turn its back on congressional Democrats because of the troop buildup.

“I believe that the Democratic base, as well as the Republican base and the independent base, is interested in jobs, jobs, jobs,” Pelosi said. “That is what we are all focused on.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas (Hoyer chats with Pelosi on Capitol Hill)

“I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times over this past week,” Sullivan told the House Homeland Security Committee when asked how Tareq and Michaele Salahi were allowed to talk their way into the White House for last week’s state dinner although they were not on the guest list.

“Do I like to see this? Believe me, we are beating ourselves up over this,” said Sullivan, who looked like he could use a good night’s sleep and seemed to have a 5 o’clock shadow even at 10 a.m.

Sullivan said he had put three Secret Services officers on paid leave for their role in letting the Virginia couple into the state dinner held in honor of the Indian prime minister.

Sullivan’s agency has been the brunt of criticism after the Salahis talked their way into the White House and managed to pose with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and others including the Marines guarding the White House.

Many members of the committee urged Sullivan — the sole witness at the hearing after Social Secretary Desiree Rogers and the Salahis refused to testify — to share out some of the blame. One after another, the lawmakers questioned why no one from the White House Social Office was helping to staff the checkpoints to verify guests’ identities as they arrived at last Tuesday’s state dinner.

But the Secret Service director held strong to his acceptance of responsibility. His only waver was when he grudgingly admitted “it would have helped” stop the Salahis from entering if a White House staffer had been present when the couple went through the checkpoint.

Some lawmakers expressed surprise at Sullivan’s refusal to pass on some of the blame to others like the Social Secretary’s office.

“I’m very impressed by your willingness to take responsibility for this incident,” said Republican Representative Charles Dent.

“We always expect the Secret Service to take a bullet for the president; we don’t expect the Secret Service to take a bullet for the president’s staff.”

The Salahis may not be so lucky. Committee staff said they were preparing subpoenas to force the couple to testify.

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Photo credits: Reuters/Larry Downing (Sullivan testifies before House committee); Samantha Appleton, White House Handout (Obama shakes hands with Michaele Salahi as her husband Tareq looks on)

On Thursday, she continued to show empathy for the embattled Afghan leader, telling senators she understood why Karzai was so confused about U.S. policy towards his war-torn country.

At a hearing on the new strategy in Afghanistan, which some say is doomed because of the weak Afghan government, Clinton said she didn’t blame anyone — least of all Karzai — for questioning past U.S. intentions.

“I don’t blame anybody for wondering where we are because of the history we inherited and our effort to frankly make sense and rationalize what was happening and to put it into an integrated military strategy,” Clinton said.

Last month, Clinton attended Karzai’s inauguration ceremony in Kabul and had many positive things to say about the re-elected leader, who has had a prickly relationship with the special representative to the region, diplomat Richard Holbrooke.

“One of the first things President Karzai said to me when I saw him in Kabul was: ‘I am confused’,” Clinton recalled.

She said Karzai had a clear idea about what he needed to do after the Sept. 11 attacks until about 2005 but he started getting mixed messages after that.

“So there has been some confusion which frankly this administration has been trying to sort through. We think we have got it about as right as we can get it given where we started from.”

Clinton is off to Brussels later today to sell the Obama administration’s new Afghan strategy to Europeans. Wonder if they have been confused too?

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Photo credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton (Clinton listens as Obama unveils Afghan strategy at West Point), Reuters/pool (Karzai speaks with Clinton in Kabul)

“We think we’ve really answered the questions fully,” she told ABC’s Good Morning America, while making the TV rounds to defend a White House decision not to send its social secretary to explain how a Virginia couple got into last week’s state dinner without an invitation.

“Having a full review up on the (White House) Web site, where everyone in the country — anyone who goes on our Web site — can read it, is the definition of transparency.”

By “full review,” she meant a one-page memo outlining new White House staff procedures intended to prevent any future pair of gate-crashers like Michaele Salahi and husband Tareq from getting through the security cordon.

Jarrett’s is an interesting assertion. Obama has made a point to enhance public access to the government after eight years of unprecedented official secrecy under George W. Bush and his powerful veep, Dick Cheney.

The crux of the matter seems to be that not everyone agrees Crasher-gate is so important.

The House Homeland Security Committee, which is hosting today’s hearing, thinks it a big enough deal. The Salahis weren’t an al Qaeda hit squad armed with poison lipstick or .50 caliber ink pens. They might have been, however, so why shouldn’t Congress hear from everybody?

But Jarrett says having U.S. Secret Service chief Mark Sullivan testify should be enough. It is the Secret Service, after all, that’s responsible for White House security. And once the agency completes its own investigation, those findings will get posted on the Web, too.

As for social secretary Desiree Rogers, Jarrett says White House staff appear before Congress only when it’s really, really important. How else would staff keep their conversations with the president confidential.

“We don’t think that this rises to that level,” Jarrett said on NBC’s Today show as the White House prepared to host a day-long jobs summit.

“Now let’s turn and focus on what I think the American people are really interested in, and that’s how to bring down the unemployment rate.”

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Photo Credits: Reuters/Jason Reed (jarrett); STR News/Reuters (the Salahis); Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Rogers)

Daley made 11 of 13 human embryonic stem cell lines approved by the National Institutes of Health on Dec. 2 and his lab can now get some of the $20 million the NIH is giving out for stem cell research -- taken from the $10 billion that NIH got as part of the $787 billion stimulus package.

"It is a huge boost. It is a stimulus to my research," says Daley, who said he has hired three lab technicians in the past two weeks.

"I can point to people and say 'Thank God for Obama -- you're here'," Daley said in a telephone interview.

Afghanistan and swimming pools:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “We’re not just going to throw these guys into the swimming pool … and walk away.”

Senator Joe Lieberman responded: “I appreciate what you said. We’re not just going to throw the Afghans into the pool and — and — and run away until we’re sure that they can swim on their own.”

Remembering Charlie Wilson’s war:

Senator Bill Nelson:  “During the ’70s and the ’80s I had the privilege of serving with Congressman Charlie Wilson in the House of Representatives.”

Nelson says to Gates: “I am so happy to see in your statement and I quote you, ‘We will not repeat the mistakes of 1989 when we abandon the country only to see it descend into civil war and then into Taliban hands.’

And it was Charlie Wilson at that time who singly had been in large part responsible for us getting in in the first place that fought us getting out. So thank you for stating the United States policy as strongly as you have.”

Gates replied: “This situation in Afghanistan has been, shall we say, personally of interest to me having worked with Charlie Wilson back in the 1980s … which was always an interesting experience.”

Fire and dynamite, old and new:

Rep. Gary Ackerman: “We have a shack that is on fire but it is located next to the dynamite factory.”

He also said: “As of 8 o clock last night, do we have a new war, or do we have an old war under new ownership? Or is it the same war with a new management strategy to muscle up and have a more elegant exit plan?”

And the question of the decade:

Rep. Eliot Engel: “Where is Osama bin Laden?”

Yes indeed…

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Photo credit: Reuters/Darren Whiteside (children at public pool in Kabul in 2002), Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (President Bush greets former Congressman Charlie Wilson in 2008)

And a powerful member of the House of Representatives, mindful of this, fears the United States could be swamping itself in Afghanistan’s rugged terrain, a graveyard of foreign forces.

“What I’m worried about is the cost of the war,” said Rep. John Murtha, who controls the Pentagon’s purse strings as chairman of the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee.

President Barack Obama, a fellow Democrat, was “real good” in presenting his new war strategy Tuesday night, “but he didn’t convince me,” Murtha told a briefing on Wednesday. He spoke after a two-day visit to Afghanistan last week.

The blunt, 77-year-old retired Marine said he had sent the president a copy of “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers,” a 1987 study by Paul Kennedy, a Yale University professor of history.

The book, subtitled “Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000,” surveyed shifting balances of power that brought all empires to dust as they overextended their reach.

Murtha said he had hand-marked passages for Obama, and sent it via retired Marine Gen. James Jones, the national security adviser. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Obama received the book, or whether he had read it or planned to do so.

War spending in Afghanistan has more than doubled over the last year, reaching $6.7 billion in June alone.  Sticker shock could fuel congressional doubts about Obama’s plan to ship in 30,000 new troops by next summer, a $30 billion to $35 billion add-on.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Theiler (Murtha inbetween Defense Secretary Robert Gates at left and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen)

Shane Bauer, a freelance journalist, Sarah Shourd, a teacher and women’s rights advocate, and Josh Fattal, an environmentalist, were arrested July 31 while on a hike in Iraqi Kurdistan.

They apparently were detained after accidently crossing a poorly marked section of border with Iran.

The Islamic Republic charged the three hikers with espionage last month and Tehran’s chief public prosecutor has said the judiciary will decide their fate.

Under Iran’s Islamic law, espionage can be punishable by death.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said “there is no evidence to support any charge whatsoever” against the youths.

The prominent collection of academics, intellectuals, artists, adventurers, writers, journalists and activists, urged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make good on his pledge to pursue maximum leniency for the three.

“To continue to detain them without due process raises grave concerns that Iran is holding these three young Americans for political purposes and calls into question Iran’s stated commitment to the rule of law,” the group said in a letter.

The signatories included, Ms. Magazine co-founder Gloria Steinem, Mother Jones magazine editor Monika Bauerlein, civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope, peace activist Noam Chomsky and antiwar activist Medea Benjamin, who founded the group Code Pink.

Also signing were Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire.

A large number of editors, publishers and professors endorsed the letter as well, including Terry Anderson, the former Associated Press correspondent who spent nearly seven years as a hostage in Beirut and now teaches at the University of Kentucky.

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Photo credit: Reuters/freethehikers.org (Shourd shown in photo provided by freethehikers.org); Reuters/Jamal Penjwey (Ahmed Awa tourist resort in Iraq near where the hikers disappeared)

It has been noted in news accounts that no one from the social secretary’s office was at the gate helping the Secret Service identify guests and making sure people not on the list did not get inside.

Gibbs noted that for the crush of holiday parties that have just begun at the White House, procedures have been changed to ensure someone from the social office is at the gate.

The White House sent over a memo outlining the new procedures.

But Gibbs rallied around Rogers, who is the subject today of a one-two punch of fairly critical stories — a column by the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd and a Style section piece by Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan.

Both of them note that Rogers was a guest at the event instead of paying all her attention to making sure things ran smoothly at the Obamas’ first state dinner.

Gibbs was peppered by questions about this from April Ryan of American Urban Radio.

“The president, the first lady and the entire White House staff are grateful for the job that she does and thinks she has done a terrific and wonderful job pulling off a lot of big and important jobs here at the White House,” Gibbs said.

He said Rogers would not be testifying on Capitol Hill tomorrow at a congressional probe about how Tareq and Michaele Salahi talked their way past the Secret Service and got into the White House and mingled with Obama, VP Joe Biden, others. Gibbs said it was a separation of powers issue, that White House staffers don’t typically testify before Congress.

UPDATE: The Salahis have declined to testify at tomorrow’s hearing. Their publicist issued a statement late this evening saying the couple has provided relevant documentation, including emails and cell phone records detailing communications with a White House official, to the Secret Service and the House Homeland Security Committee.

This just in. House Homeland Security Committee chairman threatening subpoenas if Salahis are no show at tomorrow’s hearing. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, ABC News has obtained copies of emails between the Salahis and Michele S. Jones, the Pentagon official who attempted to secure tickets for the couple to the White House state dinner and arrival ceremony.

Look at ‘em for yourself by clicking here and see if you think it proves their case.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Desiree Rogers arrives at White House state dinner)

A lawyer for six homeowners in Florida’s Walton County argued the program resulted in a strip of state-owned sand between their property and the Gulf of Mexico, depriving them of their exclusive beach access and violating their rights.

The homeowners want the state to pay them undetermined compensation for the “taking” of their property. But some of the court’s liberals appeared skeptical of the argument.

“You didn’t lose anything,” Justice Stephen Breyer told D. Kent Safriet, the attorney arguing for the homeowners. “You didn’t lose one inch. All you lost was the right to touch the water.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked whether any other homeowners had objected to the program.

Several of the conservative justices, appearing sympathetic to the homeowners, asked a number of hypothetical questions about what the state could do with the new beach.

Chief Justice John Roberts wondered whether the homeowner would have the right to stop the state from putting a hot dog stand on the land.

“It’s the state’s property. If they want to put an amusement park on (it), they can,” Roberts later said.

Justice Samuel Alito asked about a city wanting to attract more students during spring break and creating a huge beach in front of privately owned homes.

“You could have televised spring break beach parties in front of somebody’s house,” Alito said. “As a practical matter, doesn’t that have a real effect on the value of the property?”

Justice Breyer sought to counter those concerns by noting various protections under the law, including that nobody can put anything on the new beach that injures or harms the homeowner.

Of the court’s nine members, the one with the most experience living by a Florida beach did not participate in the arguments.

A Supreme Court spokeswoman declined comment on why Justice John Paul Stevens, who has a part-time home in Fort Lauderdale, apparently recused himself from the case.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Carlos Barria (tourists on a Fort Lauderdale beach), Reuters/Brian Snyder (hot dog cart in Rhode Island)