Letting go is hard to do. So hard, in fact, that I called up Hillary earlier this week to give her the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve as Columbia Political Review’s next editor-in-chief once she ends her State Department gig. I hate to say it, but she politely declined.

While Mitt Romney’s “47 percent comment” stirred up an enduring cloud of debate centered on the American notion of self-reliance and personal responsibility, the idea of responsibility in politics – what is and should be expected of our various layers of government and what are and should be the obligations of American and world citizens – has been on the stage of world events for much a longer time.