Given the task definition and input, reply with output. In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.

Last week, former President Bill Clinton disavowed a central theme of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. Tuesday, he added that a key piece of the White House’s policy agenda doesn’t make much sense to him either. 
  
 With friends like this, Obama’s political enemies don’t need to do too much. 
  
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 In an interview with CNBC that his office was scrambling to clarify Tuesday night, Clinton sided with congressional Republicans over Obama in calling for Congress to temporarily renew the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts — but he also heaped praise on private equity companies like Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, pleaded ignorance for his past gaffes and asserted his independence from the Obama campaign message operation. 
  
 It was Clinton in full Mr. Hyde mode — in a flashback to the deep and lasting tensions between the Clinton family and the Obama team that still linger from the bitter 2008 primary fight. 
  
 The interview was part of a whirlwind television tour Tuesday afternoon, with Clinton spending also granting interviews to NBC, PBS and CBS that followed up on his turn last week on CNN, when he referred to Romney’s business background — which the Obama campaign had spent days tearing apart — as “sterling.” Once again, Clinton was sucking up all the media oxygen and generating dozens of headlines about an intra-party split between the two presidents. 
  
 (Also on POLITICO: Obama and Clinton’s top lines) 
  
 It took Hillary Clinton’s campaign a good part of the 2008 primary season to realize the damage that the former president’s straight talking, can’t-be-muzzled ways could do — after he helped sink his own wife’s chances at the presidency in advance of the South Carolina primary by alienating black voters. It took the Obama campaign only one week to learn the same lesson, as Clinton swung wildly between effective surrogate and major headache. 
  
 Talking about the economic crisis in Europe and the persistent economic malaise in the United States, Clinton told CBNC that extending the Bush-era tax cuts across the board was “probably the best thing to do right now.” 
  
 Obama has made raising taxes on upper earners a signature part of his reelection pitch — and Republicans were quick to exploit the daylight between the two Democratic presidents. 
  
 “President Obama’s plans for a massive tax increase after the election will further harm the economy,” Romney’s spokeswoman Andrea Saul said. “Don’t just take our word for it. Today, former President Bill Clinton endorsed continuing tax relief for job creators — not the tax increase President Obama has in mind.” 
  
 Clinton made clear in the interview that he wasn’t fully endorsing the Republican plan — “the real issue is not whether they should be extended for another few months. The real issue is whether the price the Republican House will put on that extension is the permanent extension of the tax cuts, which I think is an error.” 
  
 But his office nonetheless Tuesday was emailing out a statement explaining what the former president was meaning to say. ||||| Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had make-up sex last night. At a fundraiser on Broadway, the former president -- playing the Good Clinton -- said that a Mitt Romney presidency would be "calamitous" for the country. 
  
 Finally, on-message. Problem is the Good Clinton never quite erases the Bad Clinton (just think back to the dark days of Monica). The Bad gets wall-to-wall coverage; the Good, not so much. Clinton's performance last night followed one from last week in which he gave a shout-out to Romney, praising him as a man who could be president and "has been governor and had a sterling business career." 
  
 "Sterling" is not the adjective the Obama campaign has been using in reference to Romney's tenure at Bain. In fact the campaign has been arguing that Romney's job-destroying habits at Bain disqualified Romney from the presidency, and here was Clinton saying they qualified him. Ouch. 
  
 Like other Democrats who've embraced Bain, Clinton has had a long love affair with Wall Street. When he raised taxes on the 1 percent in 1993, launching a period of sustained prosperity, he apologized for it. They remember that, and compare it unfavorably with Obama calling them fat cats for taking taxpayer money on the one hand and granting themselves bonuses with the other. The apology has continued to pay off for Clinton, who has raised massive amounts from this group for his Clinton Global Initiative. 
  
 Clinton may never reconcile himself to Obama, his wife's one-time nemesis. He took defeat harder than she did. Maybe we should cut the former president some slack. June is the cruelest month for him. He had to watch his wife concede the nomination to Obama in June 2008 -- and after all his hard work! 
  
 Life is always up and down with Bill Clinton. When he was president, some days he was the mesmerizing politician who could get whatever he wanted; other days he was the irresponsible playboy who could throw it all away. He may now be a silver-haired philanthropist and statesman, but he still loves a roller coaster. Obama should fasten his seat belt. 
  
 (Margaret Carlson is a Bloomberg View columnist. Follow her on Twitter.) ||||| Congressional Republicans are embracing their latest gift from Bill Clinton, blasting out one statement after another backing the former president's comment that the Bush-era tax rates should be temporarily extended. 
  
 And interviews with GOP lawmakers Tuesday evening signal that they’ll use Clinton’s remarks — which a spokesman later attempted to clarify — to further drive a wedge between him and President Barack Obama, while presenting a unified House-Senate message to amplify their point to extend all tax rates after they expire at the end of this year. 
  
 Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, called on President Barack Obama — who wants the rates to expire for the wealthiest earners — to heed Clinton's advice. 
  
 "Bill Clinton and I disagree on many things, but when it comes to stopping this massive tax hike on Jan. 1, we agree," Hatch said in a statement. "It's my sincere hope that President Clinton's call for action will spur this president to finally lead and prevent the largest tax increase in history, a tax increase that would devastate our already weak economy." 
  
 (Also on POLITICO: Clinton insists he wants Obama to win) 
  
 House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) jumped on Twitter to jump on the Clinton bandwagon: "I agree w/ Pres. Clinton that taxes shouldn't go up on anybody we should extend all tax cuts to provide certainty for families and small biz." 
  
 Aides to Speaker John Boehner also took to Twitter to push the report, with spokesman Brendan Buck tweeting: "We shall call them the Clinton tax cuts." 
  
 Clinton said in an interview with CNBC that temporarily extending the tax rates was "probably the best thing to do right now." He added, however, that the tax cuts should not be made permanent. 
  
 "The real issue is not whether they should be extended for another few months. The real issue is whether the price the Republican House will put on that extension is the permanent extension of the tax cuts, which I think is an error," Clinton said. 
  
 Clinton spokesman Matt McKenna said in a statement Tuesday night that the former president believes tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should end: “In the interview, he simply said that he doubted that a long-term agreement on spending cuts and revenues would be reached until after the election,” McKenna said. 
  
 Still, expect to hear more about Clinton from congressional Republicans a lot in the coming days, weeks and months. 
  
 There was talk in the Capitol on Tuesday night of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joining House leaders for a morning press conference highlighting the Clinton-Obama divide. McConnell's office said nothing had yet been locked down, but acknowledged the Kentucky Republican is looking for ways to bring more attention to the view that tax rates should be extended. 
  
 Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) said Republicans will talk about Clinton's remarks "every day, all the time." 
  
 "It was clear thinking. He sees the Obama economy slipping away with no remedy in sight and he's sharp enough to figure out that now is not the time to raise taxes, and the president has got to get off this pursuit of tax hikes like Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick. Get over it," he said. 
  
 Was it a gift? 
  
 "From heaven," he confirmed. 
  
 Added Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.): "President Clinton said a great thing today. ... He's right." 
  
 Coming on top of Clinton's comment that Romney's record at Bain Capital was "sterling," the former president has now undermined Obama and Hill Democrats on two key issues. 
  
 "I don't think he's tweaking Obama," West added. "He's a pragmatic man. When you look at what happened in the 1994 midterm elections, people were talking about a change in leadership [in the White House]. All of sudden, he had a House and Senate controlled by Republicans. Guess what - he pivoted. But what you see with this president is he's tripling down. [Obama] could learn from Bill Clinton." 
  
 Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) said Clinton’s comments dovetailed with the Republican perspective to keep the lower rates until Congress can enact sweeping tax reform. 
  
 “That’s not permanent,” Griffin said. “I don’t want them extended until the end of time. I want them extended until we completely reform the tax code, lower the rates even further than the [2001-03] cuts and close the loopholes." 
  
 — Jonathan Allen and John Bresnahan contributed to this report. |||||

First, it was praise for Mitt Romney and his "sterling business career"; now, Bill Clinton is again raising eyebrows after apparently straying from President Obama's message once more. Speaking to CNBC yesterday, the former president suggested that the country is currently in a recession and that the Bush tax cuts should be extended—even for the wealthiest. Now a rep is explaining what Clinton really meant: We're not in a recession but are still feeling the impact of the previous recession. And as for tax cuts for America's wealthiest, Clinton doesn't believe in them, but he doesn't foresee a long-term spending-cuts plan happening "until after the election." Political observers were quick to weigh in on Clinton's comments: The GOP is loving Clinton's position. "We shall call them the Clinton tax cuts," tweeted a John Boehner rep. "With friends like this, Obama’s political enemies don’t need to do too much," writes Byron Tau at Politico, pointing to continuing tensions between the Clintons and Obama. But maybe Clinton actually helped the president, showing "voters that the Democrats, at least, are not going to hold American families hostage to party shibboleths." Instead, they're willing to compromise, notes John Farrell in the National Journal. Don't forget, Clinton recently called a potential Romney presidency "calamitous"—but with Bill, "the Bad gets wall-to-wall coverage; the Good, not so much," notes Margaret Carlson at Bloomberg.