Sarah Palin has called Earl Blumenauer's proposition the Obama's death panel.

Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

Congressman Earl Blumenauer says he's just a regular fellow "trying to get things accomplished." As a result, the Oregon Democrat tells me, he spends much of his time "looking for ideas that can bring people together - simple, straightforward ideas that would help people and their families."

And so he proposed the infamous "death panels."

Really.

Before they were Palinized - and turned into those nasty death panels ready to pounce on Grandma (that "goofy stuff," as he now calls it), Blumenauer had a good idea: help people prepare for the end of life.

As he wrote in The New York Times last weekend, the proposition was simple: "I found it perverse that Medicare would pay for almost any medical procedure, yet not reimburse doctors for having a thoughtful conversation to prepare patients and families for the delicate, complex and emotionally demanding decisions surrounding the end of life."

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing everything in her power to get health care reform passed

Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

The story so far: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does everything in her power to get health care reform passed by keeping her Democratic caucus together.

She keeps liberals by insisting on a public option. She works on fiscal moderates by re-jiggering it. She works on lowering the cost of the package. She pays for it by taxing millionaire couples, appealing to the class-warfare crowd.

And to keep the Catholic bishops (and their moderate allies) on board, she keeps severe restrictions on paying for abortion in the measure. The liberals, of course, threaten to bolt - but it remains in the final package.

This is not legislating; it's whack-a-mole.

The challenge is simply to try and keep your unruly team in line, and maybe pick up a stray vote or two from the opposition. If you succeed, it's not about bipartisanship. It's just salesmanship.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing everything in her power to get health care reform passed

Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

The story so far: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does everything in her power to get health care reform passed by keeping her Democratic caucus together.

She keeps liberals by insisting on a public option. She works on fiscal moderates by re-jiggering it. She works on lowering the cost of the package. She pays for it by taxing millionaire couples, appealing to the class-warfare crowd.

And to keep the Catholic bishops (and their moderate allies) on board, she keeps severe restrictions on paying for abortion in the measure. The liberals, of course, threaten to bolt - but it remains in the final package.

This is not legislating; it's whack-a-mole.

The challenge is simply to try and keep your unruly team in line, and maybe pick up a stray vote or two from the opposition. If you succeed, it's not about bipartisanship. It's just salesmanship.

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Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

Right now, the political intelligentsia is consumed with the outcome of a congressional district in upstate New York.

After all, it's a great story: The longtime incumbent Republican leaves his safe district to become Barack Obama's army secretary. The region's GOP pooh-bahs meet behind closed doors and pick a social moderate - a longtime Republican assemblywoman - to run in the special election. She slides dramatically in the polls after conservatives pitch their tents in the district to loudly oppose her. At the last minute, she quits - and endorses the Democratic nominee.

She has been driven out of the race by the purists.

Sure, there's a lesson here for the political establishment: It's never a good idea to pick your candidate in a deal made behind closed doors.

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President Obama's term in office so far is relatively on message, a Democratic strategist said.

Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

So now comes the hard part.

Now that a key Senate committee has finally moved a health care bill, President Obama can get to work to try and figure out a final version of reform.

Now that Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recommended a large troop buildup in Afghanistan - setting off an internal debate about recalibrating strategy - the president can decide what he wants to do about the war.

And now that the stock market is on the rebound - while unemployment remains high - Obama can figure out how to come up with a "son of stimulus" package that targets jobs.

Tough decisions are part of the president's job description, after all.

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Only forty-six percent of registered voters say they would vote for a Democrat for Congress tomorrow

Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

In my next life, I'd like to be an opposition party leader. What fun to go to work every day knowing you will always be right, largely because your ideas will remain untested.

So you propose theories to your heart's content, with vague plans and proposals guaranteed to make any voter smile. If we were in charge, you sing, the people would have tax cuts! More money in their pockets! And no deficits! But more jobs!

And, oh, what about the great pleasure of taking on the poor guy who won? On any particular day, the president is either a socialist (health care), a captive of environmental greenies (climate change) or a dithering commander in chief who disagrees with his generals and can't make up his mind (Afghanistan). Name-calling. Can't beat that for a job.

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Only forty-six percent of registered voters say they would vote for a Democrat for Congress tomorrow

Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

In my next life, I'd like to be an opposition party leader. What fun to go to work every day knowing you will always be right, largely because your ideas will remain untested.

So you propose theories to your heart's content, with vague plans and proposals guaranteed to make any voter smile. If we were in charge, you sing, the people would have tax cuts! More money in their pockets! And no deficits! But more jobs!

And, oh, what about the great pleasure of taking on the poor guy who won? On any particular day, the president is either a socialist (health care), a captive of environmental greenies (climate change) or a dithering commander in chief who disagrees with his generals and can't make up his mind (Afghanistan). Name-calling. Can't beat that for a job.

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Gen. Stanley McChrystal says the U.S. will fail in Afghanistan without more troops.

Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

Sometimes, even in Washington, there's no way around a central truth: that in governing, there are moments when real, tough decisions must be made. No waffling. None of the usual "on the one hand, on the other hand." No hiding behind the votes cast by others.

There is one vote, and it belongs to the president.

It was that way with George W. Bush in December 2006, when, after conferring for three months with his generals and his Cabinet - not to mention the advice offered by the pooh-bahs in the Iraq Study Group - he decided on a surge strategy in Iraq. It was not a plan highly touted by many of his advisers, but by January, Bush told the nation "America will change our strategy ... [and] this will require increasing American force levels."

As it turns out, the surge worked.

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President Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress last Wednesday.

Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

Now is the time for all long debates to come to an end.

The nation has been discussing what to do about burgeoning health care costs and shrinking insurance coverage for much of the past 16 years, not to mention all of the last few months.

As President Obama has rightly pointed out, we're debated-out. Few minds are likely to be changed at this point.

It's time to do something.

So, an idea. If Republicans are really interested in passing some version of health reform, as they say, how about this? Call Obama's bluff.

The standard line we hear these days from both sides is that "we agree on 80 percent" of the parameters of reform - issues like coverage for pre-existing conditions and improving the Medicare prescription drug benefit, for instance. So if there is a slew of agreements that have been hashed out by both sides in committee, why not separate them out and pass them - with a bipartisan vote.

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Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst

In a way, the president really has no other choice but to finally speak - and speak conclusively about what he wants in a health care reform bill.

After all, 67 percent of Americans told CBS pollsters over the weekend that the health care debate is "confusing." Only 31 percent thought they had a "clear understanding" of the issues involved. What's worse, the uncertainty cut across party lines. For once, in this polarized time, Democrats and Republicans agree on something: They're perplexed by this health care debate.

And so the White House has allowed that it's time for the president to weigh in, perhaps from the Oval Office or maybe in an address to Congress. No matter how he does it, this much is clear: better late than never.

It hasn't been an easy summer. And maybe, when this is all over, administration aides will look back at their initial strategy with some chagrin. You'll recall the plan was to allow Congress to legislate first, in order to avoid the mistakes of then-first lady Hillary Clinton 16 years ago. She presented a health care reform plan to Congress which then became a big, fat target. The bill died, and she was excoriated.

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