Former President Bill Clinton — a favorite both in Israel, and amongst pro-Israel supporters here in the US — recently made an abrupt shift in his public statements on Israel, breaking completely from the dominant ‘neo-conservative, inner-beltway’ narrative on US foreign policy in the Middle East.

WARNING: DON’T READ THIS EXCERPT FROM A NEWT GINGRICH CAMPAIGN MEMO WHILE EATING. IT IS DISGUSTING.

One explanation put forth for why President Obama and his aides are so upset with the liberal base of the Democratic Party is that they believe Obama has achieved legislative success rivaling that of President Lyndon Johnson, but the base does not appreciate this success. Even NPR’s Mara Liasson easily refuted the “success” aspect of the comparison, but the comparison to LBJ is an especially poor choice for a number of other reasons, as well.

It’s been nearly 35 years since we’ve had a “tax and spend” political party. During the 1970s, the Democrats gave up fighting the Republicans about the “tax and spend” label, and the Carter Administration tried to escape from that charge by making very serious attempts to balance the budget. During the 1980s, more and more Democrats emphasized their concern for reducing deficits and balancing budgets as a way of distinguishing themselves from the Reagan Administration’s unprecedented peacetime deficits. This didn’t work for them during Reagan’s time, but they finally were able to use the balanced budget old-time religion game to get George Bush to violate his no new taxes pledge, which both contributed to the Bush recession and, as a further consequence, was a big reason why Bill Clinton was elected.

Bill Clinton says Powell misrepresented the policy.

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — Have they given Americans the good government they deserve?

We constantly hear the monotonous refrain from the right that now is not the time to raise taxes, even for the richest Americans, citing that this will somehow threaten the weak and halting recovery. Yet a composite number of 59% of the American people either favor the expiration of tax cuts for the wealthiest or a roll back of the Bush era tax cuts entirely as per the latest Gallup Poll.

An outspoken advocate for gay rights gets elected and nothing good happens for LGBT citizens.

North Korea’s got another U.S. citizen being held captive in their closed off state. Last year around this time, we remember that Bill Clinton came to the rescue for two American journalists who were being held hostage. This time around, another former president is ready to venture into the country and hopes to come out with another imprisoned U.S. Citizen

We’d like Less Candidate Obama, More President Obama. President Obama has the ability and drive to get many great things accomplished; now he needs to buckle down and do them.