Last week, we saw the return of “stop complaining” — and now it looks like “we suck less” is back, too.

As much as the Ryan budget was a catastrophic political mistake for House Republicans, these talks – particularly today’s focus – offers an opportunity for Ryan and the GOP to save face. If they get a budget deal, especially one with cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, they can credibly say that their boldness to talk frankly about entitlements ended up succeeding in chipping away at the problem. And Democrats could hardly position themselves as the defenders of Medicare if they enact a grand bargain that shifts cost-sharing onto seniors.

Obama Administration’s kabuki over Israeli Palestinian peace efforts continues as historic Shepherd Hotel in Palestinian neighborhood is demolished.

Funny how Republicans never get told, “Take it or leave it.”

Blanche Lincoln just joined Republicans to scuttle the defense bill, and with it the DREAM Act and DADT repeal–both purportedly Administration priorities (to say nothing about the Defense bill itself). Moreover, no amount of money is going to get Blanche out of her electoral hole this year. And her patrons, the Waltons, have plenty to give her all by themselves, without picking the pockets of Boston liberals.

So why is Joe Biden wasting some of his precious time and political capital helping a woman who, yesterday, broke with the party on the defense bill?

Joe Biden is your cable provider screaming that they are better than the phone company, and you know they are better than the phone company, and if you don’t know that, no matter what your experience, then it is your problem, you fucking idiot.

In an interview on the PBS NewsHour last Wednesday, Joe Biden was unwilling to contradict the official narrative of the Iraq War that Gen. David Petraeus and the Bush surge had turned Iraq into a good war after all. That interview serves as a reminder of just how completely the Democratic Party foreign policy elite has adopted that narrative.

Joe Biden played down expectations for the celebrated July 2011 “inflection point” in Afghanistan by lowering the bar on the number of troops that may leave the country in the first phase to an almost comical number. You get the sense that these guys are petrified to be left with no wars to fight and no toughness to display.

This is just Kremlinology, of course. But it says something that the White House chose to deploy Rahm to give an on-the-record account of Obama’s decisiveness here. And that that official record left out Hillary, either because she wasn’t involved or her involvement didn’t serve the overall narrative.

The Rolling Stone article appears to be a McChrystal-led effort to shore up his tough guy cred. But the actual content of the story shows that tough guy cred won’t win you a war in Afghanistan.