As Newsweek reported, last January Bill got so worked up in a phone call with Donna Brazile that he ranted, "If Barack Obama is nominated, it will be the worst denigration of public service." The magazine also revealed that "The former president had amassed an 81-page list of all the unfair and nasty things the Obama campaign had said, or was alleged to have said, about [Hillary Clinton]."

If Hillary wants to be Madame Secretary, Bill will have to put away the 81-page list and pick up the 63 questions in the Obama vetting questionnaire, an unprecedented deep probe of potential Cabinet members and their spouses.

(Lincoln appointed a New York senator, William Seward, as his secretary of state. He promptly bought Alaska, known as "Seward's Folly," which ended up bringing us the folly of Sarah Palin).

If Barry chooses Hillary as secretary of state, a woman who clearly intimidated him and taught him to be a better pol in the primaries, it doesn't signal the return of the Clinton era. It says the opposite: If you have a president who's willing to open up his universe to other smart, strong people, if you have a big dog who shares his food dish, the [Bill Clinton] era is truly over.