President Obama's biggest advocates believe that Americans are ready to embrace his vision for the United States: a less muscular America on the world stage, an America with a more controlling executive branch and less conflict in the legislative branch, an America in which the government takes care of us, be we Pajama Boys or Julias.

After the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Obama administration steadfastly refused to say which element of the U.S. military had participated in the assault. Until Vice President Joe Biden decided to talk about it on national television, that is.

What sort of job can you hold in America in which it is safe to hold the personal conviction that same-sex marriage is wrong? The answer: there is no such job. Except Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. Then you're fine.

When Americans are faced with the prospect that they can never earn their way to wealth, they have two choices: to rebel against the system, or to settle into depressed complacency.

I grew up in the Midwest. I understand a sense of the small-town mentality, small-town social politics.

Some people say that given the government's firm stance against genuine universal suffrage, our demands are impossible to achieve. But I believe activism is about making the impossible possible.

We need to defend principles like democracy, freedom of speech, gender equality, and the rule of law through exemplifying these on a global scale, not through the same cynical, isolationist policies which have eroded these so-called 'British' values across the rest of the world.

The word 'democracy' and the name of Assad do not blend very well in much of Syria.