The Democrats say they have the 216 votes needed to pass health care. They are already pounding their chests. Here's House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson on ABC's "This Week":

"President Roosevelt passed Social Security. Lyndon Johnson passed Medicare. Today, Barack Obama will pass health-care reform.”

The vote will take place between 6 p.m. and midnight.

The health care vote may not be until tomorrow, but the accolades for President Obama, who says health care will be his legacy, Nancy Pelosi and even Harry Reid are already beginning. From The New York Times:

That Mr. Obama has come this far — within a whisper of passing historic social legislation — is remarkable in itself. But the story of how he did it is not his alone. It is the story of how a struggling president partnered with a pair of experienced legislators — Ms. Pelosi and, to a lesser extent, Mr. Reid — to reach for a goal that Mr. Obama has often said had eluded his predecessors going back to Theodore Roosevelt.

Their journey over the last two months, interviews with White House aides, lawmakers, outside advisers, lobbyists and political strategists show, involved tensions, resolve, political spadework — and a little bit of luck.

The accolades are less for the content of the bill and more for the arduous task of herding the cats. (I wonder if that's how the phrase "Congress critters" came about.)Do most Americans even know what's in the bill? [More...]

That's the title of his latest column:

Here is the ultimate paradox of the Great Health Care Showdown: Congress will divide along partisan lines to pass a Republican version of health care reform, and Republicans will vote against it. Yes, Democrats have rallied behind a bill that Republicans—or at least large numbers of them—should love. It is built on a series of principles that Republicans espoused for years.

[. . .] Republicans always say they are against “socialized medicine.” Not only is this bill nothing like a “single-payer” health system along Canadian or British lines. It doesn’t even include the “public option” that would have allowed people voluntarily to buy their insurance from the government. The single-payer idea fell by the wayside long ago, and supporters of the public option—sadly, from my point of view—lost out last December. [. . .] Democrats, including President Obama, are so anxious to get everyone health insurance that they are more than willing to try a market-based system and hope it works. It’s a shame the Republicans can no longer take “yes” for an answer.

Shorter E.J. Dionne - progressives got rolled.

Speaking for me only

At last, a U.S. policy in Afghanistan that makes sense: Leave the poppy fields be.

From Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal on down, the military’s position is clear: “U.S. forces no longer eradicate,” as one NATO official put it. Opium is the main livelihood of 60 to 70 percent of the farmers in Marja, which was seized from Taliban rebels in a major offensive last month. American Marines occupying the area are under orders to leave the farmers’ fields alone.

The rationale:

"We don’t trample the livelihood of those we’re trying to win over.”

Greg Sargent at the Plum Line says Obama wouldn't adopt this mocking tone of Republicans unless it was in the bag. He also thinks the Dems are releasing some vulnerable members, like Jim Matheson and Zack Space of Ohio, saying it's okay for them to vote "no" because they don't need them. They've got the votes.

Here's a rough schedule of tomorrow's vote timeline: [More..]

Via TNR's Jonathan Cohn at Twitter:

No deem and pass. Separate vote on Senate bill.

How out to lunch are the protesters? From a few hours ago, via Cohn:

Rally speaker just attacked Obama obesity initiative: "Michelle, keep your hands off my kids' lunchbox"

A new deal seems to be in the works on abortion and the health care bill. It's mostly on Twitter. Seems President Obama is considering issuing an executive order to prevent funding of abortions -- rather than including it in the bill.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) says acceptance depends on the details. Evan Glass at CNN reports "Pro-choice Dem women are giving the green light for Obama to sign an executive order reaffirming no fed $ for abortion"

So what's the executive order going to say? According to Glass, "Democrats are 7 "no" votes shy of the 216 needed to defeat the bill." Meaning they only can afford to lose 7 votes?

Related to this post. Matt Yglesias writes in disagreement with Ezra Klein:

What happened in the health care debate is that interest groups were able to get their way on most key points without needing to seriously attempt to deliver votes in exchange. [. . .] Basically thanks to their influence over “centrist” Democrats, the interest groups were able to get 85 percent of what they wanted in exchange for absolutely nothing.

Is this really true? I think not. Making deals with PhRMA on no drug reimportation and other interest groups for no public insurance program kept them on the sidelines but I doubt it swayed many Blue Dogs. What is more telling is who Obama did not have to bargain with - progressives. This is because they knew progressives would be rolled. This brings us back to MaryB's point:

MaryB in the comments to this post:

[Nate Silver] believes (and therefore the "counterparty" could reasonably believe) that the Union negotiators could walk away (or threaten to walk away) from the table without their stakeholders making them pay any price later. They could easily explain to their stakeholders why they were doing this and they would be believed and supported.

He doesn't believe (and therefore he thinks the "counterparty" wouldn't believe) that the progressive caucus could do that. He believes that progressives would be forced by their stakeholders to pay a price (or believed that they would pay a price)if they threatened to walk away. A few points about this:

Tony Mauro writes at Law.com that Obama is ready with a short list of replacement candidates if Justice John Paul Stevens retires. Who's on it?

The list includes Solicitor General Elena Kagan, appeals court Judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Janet Napolitano? Ugh, I hope not.

The House Rules Committee is in session setting up the rules for tomorrow's health care vote.

Stupak postponed his press conference on the abortion issue. What is he, the new Drama Queen? Pelosi says there will be no separate vote on his proposal.

Seems to me the bill is going to pass. It may be a squeaker, but it will pass.

There's a really unfortunate report in the Wall St. Journal saying the ink is almost dry on a deal to try the 9/11 suspects in military commission trials rather than federal criminal courts.

Under the deal, spurred by (of course) Lindsey Graham and Rahm Emanuel, and White House counsel Robert Bauer, 48 Guantanamo detainees would be held indefinitely without charges. And,

Mr. Graham wants civilian courts to be reserved for low-level Al Qaeda operatives and terrorist financiers, a far smaller group than previously considered.

White House and Democratic aides in the Senate said what they called an opening "proffer" from Sen. Graham won't be the final outcome. But the broad framework of a deal is done. "We're now at the 'getting serious' stage," said one senior Democratic Senate aide.

[More...]