President Obama always knew he'd face an uphill battle to get healthcare reform legislation through Congress this year. He gave them a pretty generous timeline to do so, and we are fast approaching one of the dates on that timeline -- each house of Congress is supposed to pass their version of a healthcare reform bill by the time Congress breaks for the summer for five weeks. Achieving this milestone on Obama's timeline is now officially in doubt. So Obama should push back a little, and unveil the threat of using Article II, Section 3, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, which states that the president "may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them." In other words: call a "special session" of Congress. In even plainer language: cancel their month-long-plus vacation.

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Is President Obama just a politician, or is he a leader? That is the core question he faces in the debate over healthcare reform, and -- so far -- he seems to be more concerned with being a successful politician than being a successful leader. Because Obama appears to have one major goal in this entire undertaking -- in his words, "a bright line in the sand" -- which he will not back down from. That goal appears to be to sign a piece of legislation this year. What the legislation actually contains is of lesser importance than being able to say: "I got healthcare reform passed."

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While it is so easy to slip into double meanings when talking about Sarah Palin (for example, I considered "Waiting For The Other Naughty Monkey Double Dare Red Shoe To Drop" as a title today... ahem), the title I did choose starts out as a literal one. Because I finally got around to reading Palin's most recent interview, in Runner's World magazine. And the article is accompanied by seven photos, not (as one may have expected) of Sarah Palin actually running, but instead of Sarah preparing to run. We'll get into double meanings later, but first, let's examine these preparing-to-run photos.

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Obama's June poll numbers were down a bit. But not by much. If you had nothing but the inside-the-Beltway pundits to listen to (as opposed to actual data, that is), you might be pretty worried about Obama's standing in the polls right now. Dire warnings that "Obama's dropping in the polls" or "Obama's poll numbers are tanking" or even "Obama has lost the public" and other such tommyrot has been a common theme for a few weeks now.

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Tomorrow will be an important date in the history of America's involvement in Iraq. Because it is the first milestone on the timeline for withdrawal that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki wrested from George W. Bush late last year. Which means, barring unforeseen circumstances (always a possibility in a war zone), tomorrow will mark the beginning of the end of America's military presence in Iraq.

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Dan Froomkin's "White House Watch" column today will be the last one that appears on WashingtonPost.com. Froomkin has expressed interest in possibly moving the column elsewhere and continuing it, and I consider this a test of whether newspapers are (a.) smart enough to realize this is the way to modernize and move into the future of journalism, or (b.) dumb as a bag of hammers. WashingtonPost.com has obviously chosen the (b.) route. Because Froomkin's column is a shining example of how newspapers could migrate from their print business model to the more interactive web-based model they need to be in to survive.

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So there are going to be some ground rules that are going to apply to all insurance companies, because I think the American people understand that, too often, insurance companies have been spending more time thinking about how to take premiums and then avoid providing people coverage than they have been thinking about how can we make sure that insurance is there, health care is there when families need it.

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Welcome back to your weekly Friday Talking Points roundup. This week will be a bit unusual, as instead of the normal list of talking points Democrats everywhere should be using this weekend in conversations (especially with the media), I'm devoting the entire talking points segment to one single issue -- why what President Obama is doing on the situation in Iran is exactly the right thing to do, and why his hands are tied (by the ropes of American history) so that saying anything more enthusiastic than he's already said would actually be counterproductive if you support the Iranians currently marching in the streets. Because there is a giant elephant in the room of the discussion of American/Iranian relations that nobody wants to discuss, and nobody (other than Obama himself) is even admitting exists -- an elephant with the year "1953" painted on its side. But more about that later, let's take care of the weekly chores first.

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My first choice of a headline for today's column was "Obama's Gay Honeymoon Over," but then I thought better of it. President Obama is currently trying to placate a group of supporters who are not in a mood to be impressed right now with mere incrementalism. Gay rights supporters, quite rightly, are now asking Obama point-blank: "When are you going to make good on all those promises you made to us on the campaign trail? How long are we supposed to wait?"

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To put it another way (that is less dependent upon how readers personally interpret italics), the first point is: "Where the heck are the Democrats in the public debate about healthcare reform? I haven't been hearing much from them on the news, or the talk shows. Who is leading the effort? Who is supporting the effort? WHERE are all the Democrats out there talking about it in public?"

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