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What a week to go on vacation! I've been out of the country for the past week and a half on my much-delayed honeymoon, and the healthcare reform bill goes and gets itself passed. I'll be back posting once I get a handle on what's happened in my absence. In the meantime, a great quote from the NY Times:

Many Democrats credited the president with having saved the legislation from the brink of collapse. He held a remarkable, day-long televised forum with Congressional leaders of both parties, lobbied for the overhaul in campaign-style rallies around the country, attacked abuses by private insurance companies, and repeatedly told the stories of everyday Americans who had suffered in the existing health system.

This comes after much moaning by the left that Obama wasn't putting any effort into healthcare reform, and was screwing it up, etc. etc. Something for those of us on the left to remember - we have a president of uncommon strategic intelligence, with nerves of whatever's harder than steel.

In the primary, it looked like his campaign was drifting during the fall of 2007, only to see Obama turn it on in Iowa at the J-J dinner, and ride his amazing (and painstakingly created) political machine to victory. In the general election there was some slack in the summer after the conventions, but again he turned it on in the debates and had put in the quiet work organizing to make the win happen. We saw the same pattern for the healthcare bill - a big flurry of activity in the beginning, and then the appearance of drift (while Obama worked in the background to put the gears into place) and then the big push at the end to get it done.

Let's all keep this in mind before we decide that DADT, the climate change bill, etc., is dead because of lack of presidential zeal, eh?