"Obama: He staked everything on this and, like the long distance runners from his fatherland, he made it (barely) across the finish line."

That's Newsweek's Howard Fineman, making a racial remark, which he probably thinks is okay, since he likes Obama.

What will happen to Obama and the Democrats in the polls now?

Glenn Reynolds predicts: A brief poll bump for Obama based on positive news coverage of the bill passage. Then, more decline."

I tend to think people will get used to the change and stop paying attention, and the polls will move back to equilibrium between the parties. People will never be giddy and dreamy about Obama again, but so what? (Note to Althouse haters: "So what?" is a serious question.) We shouldn't be so optimistic about government. That's why we resisted the reform. We didn't trust it. Now that it's happened, won't most people get bored with looking at the government and turn back to their immediate lives? The mistrust that made people say "no" will be processed into jadedness and aversion to politics. People will try to live good lives on their own and be fatalistic about how the reforms will affect them. My basic political orientation is aversion to politics, and I found myself thinking, as soon as the vote count reached 216 last night: Well, I hope some good comes of this and the bad isn't too horribly bad. People aren't going to stay fired up. The natural process is to stabilize and find normal. Isn't that why we're so conservative in the first place?

"This is how sports agents and crisis managers imagine speaking from the heart, but only in the abstract."

"It is somewhat the same way when they imagine sincerity. They think we're all as easy as the other women in [Tiger] Woods' (former) life."

The end.

Watching the House vote.

"congrats to bart stupak. now everybody hates you."

Atrios tweets.

ADDED: Why did "a meaningless executive order" make the difference for Stupak?

It's over.

"House Democrats who had withheld support of the health care legislation because of abortion concerns said Sunday afternoon that they would back the bill, all but assuring that Democrats would have the 216 votes needed for passage."

(And Wisconsin just lost too.)

ADDED: I'd meant to put a question mark after "It's over" — on the theory that there's still room for an upset. But I didn't, and that's the way it will stay. And WTF Wisconsin! Cornell!