Being at the table and playing a central role does not necessarily mean having a permanent job in the administration.  I heard the audio of Obama's comment, and it looked to me as if the slight verbal stumble was an effort to find phrasing that didn't include a job offer as such.  Something like a Gore-chaired commission to come up with a plan in the first six months of the new administration would be consistent with what both Obama and Gore have said.  Likely something similar would happen with Clinton.

Oh come on. He was asked a sensible question and gave a sensible answer. An incoming president will need to get stuff kickstarted as quickly as possible on climate change, and getting Gore involved is the obvious thing to do.

BTW I was amused by the CBC's version of this story. It ended with the following paragraph

Gore is perhaps the single most coveted endorsement up for grabs in tight competition between Obama and Clinton, a New York Senator and former first lady who is married to Bill Clinton.

... that's just in case any Canadians have been living under rocks for the past 15 years.

The green party in the US is a nice idea, but only in theory. In fact, one might argue that all it will successfully accomplish is marginalizing green issues and its supporters. There are dozens (if not more) third parties in the US. It is very hard (and in this day and age almost impossible) for a third party to have any electoral success (it does happen on a community level in certain places around the country). There are key differences between the electoral systems of most European countries and the US. In the US, we have a single-member district system that is winner take all. It makes our system functionally a two-party system. Most of Europe has a proporational representation system. Voters in Europe vote for the party, not the candidate. All that is needed for a small party to gain seats in a parliamentary body is to get over the threshold (whatever that threshold may be). Sometimes, that threshold is as low as 5%. Here in the US, you need a plurality of the vote at least (in some parts of the country, you need an outright majority). The Green party getting 50.1% of the vote? I don't think so. Even 40-45%, not likely. To insist on something like this, just because it works in Germany is to deny the reality of the electoral constraints place upon the US system.