Last weekend on the radio show, I told you that Senator Barack Obama had finally figured out that he wasn’t just running against his fellow Junior Senator, but against a former president as well.

In comments to a newspaper last week, Obama seemed to casually mention that Ronald Reagan had changed the country “in ways that Richard Nixon did not” and “in ways Bill Clinton did not.”  Obama did three crucial things here: 1. he acknowledged that 2008 is a change election year on the scale of 1980; 2. he acknowledged that Reagan was a vitally important change agent (hello, conservatives!); and 3.  he hit back at Bill Clinton, who for weeks has been dismissing Obama’s candidacy and his positions as “the biggest fairy tale” he’d ever seen.

It finally dawned on Obama that Bill isn’t just a surrogate for his wife, but is himself running for a third term.  (Of course, loyal listeners to the Monica Crowley radio show knew that a year ago.)

This morning on ABC’s Good Morning America, Obama said, “Bill has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling.  He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts….This has become a habit, and one of the things that we’re going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he’s making statements that are not factually accurate.”

What?!  Bill Clinton, an habitual liar?!  Now Obama has gone too far!!

I also love that Obama has taken a page out of Bill Clinton’s 1992 playbook: that year, the upstart Arkansas governor referred to the incumbent president against whom he was running as “Mr. Bush.”  Obama referring to the former president as “Bill” is a delectable example of “what goes around, comes around.”

All three Democratic candidates for president—her, him, and Obama—are spending the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday dueling for black votes.  The mythical first black president thinks he can charm those voters on behalf of his white wife.  But the actual black man in the race has a thing or two he wants to say about that, and for the first time, “Bill” may be out of his depth.

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