My personal favorites remain Carolyn Maloney and Byron Brown, the mayor of Buffalo, but they're obviously long shots in this process.

  As for your claim re Hillary voting for pre-emptive war, please note the speech that Clinton made when she voted on that resolution, along with Kerry, Edwards, et the majority of Dems.  

  It includes this:

"My vote is not, however, a vote for any new doctrine of pre-emption, or for uni-lateralism, or for the arrogance of American power or purpose -- all of which carry grave dangers for our nation, for the rule of international law and for the peace and security of people throughout the world."

  Since you try to be fairminded, please do me the favor of reading a few other things I learned about this, including things Obama said.

  By the way, that repeated unsupported charge reminds me of the news people who repeat the falsehood that she said she'd obliterate Iran.  In that case, she was answering an interviewer about what she would  do if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel.

  She said that if the leaders were planning this, once they had the materials and know how, then they should "remember" before doing this that we have the power to obliterate them and this should prevent them from doing anything like that, as it would be a tragedy if they did, and of course it would be.

  A nuclear attack on Israel would be at least that.

I absolutely disagree with HRC's vote, but for chrissakes, the woman gave her reasons already, the ramifications were probably not what any of the aforementioned people wanted or expected. and remember, we hadn't truly seen the finest of Bush's lying and conniving self at that point in time - and I think it's absolutely reasonable for those within the country (including electeds) to belive that the president has the best of intentions for the country. Does that justify invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11? of course not. should they have taken a step back to consider that little nugget? ABSOLUTELY. but for the love of god, get over AUMF. BUSH is the person you should be upset about for taking advantage of the situation and the subsequent madness.

It's this kind of hard-line "well-if-they-aren't-perfect-progressives-they-must-be-republicans" that makes the Dems our own worst enemies sometimes. Though the ability to disagree with one another and stay somewhat cohesive is pretty awesome.

Rice was the first African American woman SOS.

Powell, of course, was the first African American SOS.

But while we're at it, let's remember the real pioneer as the first-ever in the Cabinet who was not a white male:  Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor for FDR for a dozen years, after a long career in labor -- influenced by her being nearby and then at the scene of the terrible tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911.  That led her into heading up the New York State commission that changed workplace laws there and led the way across the country.

And Perkins was nearby that day because she was working in NYC for the Consumers League, founded by the great group of women trained at Jane Addams' Hull House since the turn of the century -- in Chicago, where Clinton was born.