Hillary Clinton, Senate Majority Leader?

Obama passed on her as vice president but can still put Hillary Clinton on the team by backing her for Senate Majority Leader.

In that role, Harry Reid has been ineffectual in rallying Democrats to curtail Bush's excesses or even effectively articulate an opposition view. Now, with a Senate reshuffling that includes the stepping-down of Robert Byrd and the throwing-out of Joe Lieberman, "change" could be served by bringing Clinton to the forefront.

With a clear electoral mandate and wide margin in Congress, before reaching out to Republicans as he has promised to do, the President-Elect can solidify his own ranks by recruiting the faction of his own party he narrowly defeated to win the nomination.

By naming Rahm Emanuel chief of staff, Obama has shown he was no qualms about relying on former Clinton loyalists. Choosing the former First Lady as a legislative partner would be a logical next step.

During the primaries, there were insistent rumors that Reid himself was offering his position to Sen. Clinton as an inducement to concede the nomination. He denied them, but the idea now won't come as a shock.

Clinton's ascension would be a powerful metaphor for cracking the glass-ceiling with women in the leadership positions of both houses of Congress, and her passion on domestic issues would nicely compliment Joe Biden's strength on foreign policy as surrogates for the new Administration's views.

The efforts of both Clintons during the campaign and the logic of a Hillary run in 2012 as a natural heir to a successful Obama Administration are strong arguments against any worries about possible subversion.

In his reaching out for bipartisan consensus, the President-Elect could start with unifying his own party.

What Hillary Should Say Tonight

Fellow Democrats, I had hoped to be standing here under different circumstance, but I am proud to be with you and thank those who worked with me to change the face of American politics. That we have done and, although the face this time is not mine, there is still much more for us to do.

A decade ago, I saw first-hand the politics of personal destruction and the lengths to which those who practice it will go in their lust for power. The bitter irony now is that they are invoking my name in an attempt to destroy the opponent with whom I engaged in an intense but honorable contest for the nomination we will be bestowing on him here.

Back then, before the evidence of the past eight years, I described it a vast right-wing conspiracy. Now we know what it is really is--a radical attempt to undermine American values with needless wars, infringement of traditional rights and usurping all the fruits of the American economy for themselves at the expense of hard-working families.

I repudiate them now as I did then and urge everyone who has honored me with support to do the same. They are the true enemies of everything we believe in, and we must not let them practice their divide-and-conquer tactics on us.

If you support Barack Obama with all your heart, as I do, we can rid ourselves of their toxic effects on American life for a long time to come. Yes we can.