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President-elect Barack Obama met with Senator Hillary Clinton last week, and since then, a lot has been made about the possibility of Obama’s former rival becoming his secretary of state.

The big question this week is what sort of problems Bill Clinton could cause in the vetting process of his wife. Since he left office, President Clinton has started a new career which involves some “complicated international business dealings.” He also has a global foundation with a long list of donors who may not all agree with incoming President Obama’s policies.

But the Clintons have been here before. If Hillary gets the “all clear” and is offered the job, the next question is: Should she take it?

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Republican Senator Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma wants to put a “freeze” on the remaining cash in the big government bailout of the financial industry. In this week’s lame duck session, Inhofe plans to push for legislation that will require Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan for the remaining $350 billion in the bailout package to be voted on in Congress.

Despite promises from Congressional leaders that there would be both, there is absolutely no transparency or congressional oversight on where the first $290 billion has gone. Senator Inhofe suggests Paulson “may have given the money to his friends.”

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As GM goes, so goes the nation…That’s the old motto anyway. Financially neither one is looking so good right now. And General Motors, along with Ford and Chrysler, is looking for some help from our already cash-strapped government to get back on track. Estimates are if the Big Three go belly up, unemployment could hit 10 percent.

But doubts about a bailout for the auto industry grew yesterday on Capitol Hill as Democratic leaders conceded they don’t have the votes to get a measure through in next week’s lame duck session.

If General Motors fails– and it would likely be the first of the Big Three to fall because Ford is in better shape and Chrysler is a much smaller company– the impact would be huge.

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The New York Times reports that congressional Democrats are going to move forward with investigations of the Bush administration even after the president leaves office in January. That could prove to be quite a task.

Where to begin… Abuse of the power of the Executive Branch… Torture of detainees… The role of former White House aides Harriet Miers and Karl Rove in the firing of federal prosecutors… Eavesdropping without a warrant. It’s a very long list.

The rub is that President Bush may be able to block subpoenas long after he leaves the White House.

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The three dollar bill with the $400 haircuts is back. Former Senator, Vice Presidential candidate, Presidential candidate and adulterer John Edwards gave a speech at Indiana University yesterday. He was paid 35-thousand dollars for the appearance. He talked about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, politics…everything except his adulterous affair with campaign filmmaker Rielle Hunter.

Afterwards there was a question and answer session. But no press and the questions he agreed to answer were submitted in advance…that way he could avoid anything that made him uncomfortable.

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When’s the last time a losing vice presidential candidate was still in the news a week after the election? Nobody seems interested in interviewing Joe Biden, or for that matter, John McCain. But we just don’t seem to be able to get enough of Sarah Palin.

The news media are scrambling to get her thoughts on everything…the campaign, the charges from within the McCain camp that she is a “whack job” and a “rogue,” the $150,000 wardrobe, the travel expenses for her family that were charged to taxpayers of the state of Alaska. It’s obviously something besides her keen and subtle grasp of the complexities of being president of the United States.

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Barack Obama won the White House last week on a message of “change.” That’s something that’s easier said than done in Washington.

But the president-elect’s transition chief John Podesta told “Fox News Sunday” that Obama plans to use his executive powers to make an immediate impact when he takes office in January.

Podesta said, “As a candidate, Senator Obama said that he wanted all the Bush executive orders reviewed and decide which ones should be kept and which ones should be repealed.”

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After getting the wind knocked out of them in 2006 and 2008, Republicans are a party in disarray...

From putting a woman on the presidential ticket who reportedly can't name the members of the North American Free Trade Agreement and thinks Africa is a country rather than a continent, to a presidential candidate who declared: "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" at the same moment the worst financial crisis in almost a century was descending on the U.S. economy, they appear to have lost their touch. And if they're pinning their presidential hopes on Sarah Palin for 2012, well, good luck with that.

Bush damaged the brand but John McCain and Sarah Palin didn't do much to restore it.

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Barack Obama made history Tuesday night, after voters came out in record numbers to support him and many voting for the first time.

It was a stunning rise to the presidency for a 47 year-old freshman senator, let alone one who is African-American.

Along the way, he beat out a handful of familiar Washington names for the top spot on the Democratic ticket...Former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards, Senator Chris Dodd, Senator Joe Biden who eventually became his running mate and, of course, most notably, Senator Hillary Clinton.

Her star power and powerful ties weren't enough to beat out Obama, but was there something more at play?

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There was perhaps no more profound way to slam the door on eight years of the Bush administration than to elect the first African-American to replace him. The symbolism is powerful; the history is breathtaking. We changed a lot more than our political orientation last night. The country finally grew up.

Something stirred us in a profound way. The disillusionment and disappointment of failed polices everywhere you look were the catalysts. Barack Obama was the spark. Watching him in Grant Park last night, it occurred to me that just like Hemingway was born to write and Tiger Woods to hit a golf ball, this man, Obama, was born to do this, to lead.

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