Obama seems poised to listen to Chris Mathews instead of me. Fingers crossed, but I think it's a mistake.

Attack Hillary? Ok. Do that. I hope it works. God knows, there's unlimited material to work with. The Clintons are responsible for betraying the classic model of modern progressivism. That model emphasized economic justice for impoverished and exploited masses of people all over the world. The Clintons, honestly motivated, I have no doubt, decided that the best way to serve the cause was to collaborate with corporate domination of a global economy and play high profile diversity and charity cards to make up the slack.

They ended up doing a "give back" philanthropy shtick at elite gatherings of power brokers. They wrote books about how it takes a village while playing footsie with mega CEOs to get donations for malaria prevention in Nigeria--while oil companies hired drug crazed boys for thug militias that ensured the flow of Nigerian MONEY to the coffers of capital.

Obama has nothing left to lose. He should throw off the self-imposed constraints that got him this far, that got him to the top of the Harvard Law Review and all of that. He's in a whole new situation. He has to step up to his destiny or the gods will pass him by. He has to preserve enough of the cool intelligence that got him this far in order to decide just how to do what he should be doing. But he needs to get clear on what that is:

Leading the world.

That's audacity.