Where are we on National Healthcare?

FIRST THOUGHTS for the Week

Enter Kathleen Sebelius: The tone of Obama's health-care week gets set today when the president formally introduces his second choice for HHS secretary: Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. ... Also, as we've written before, I am expecting that the debate over abortion to heat up and influence if not sink our Hope for National Healthcare this term. Look for the pro-life community to start test-driving some of its abortion messages on this confirmation hearing ...

*** The White House Gets Its Sea Legs: We shouldn't let last week go without acknowledging how well the Obama White House dominated the messaging of each and every day last week, and also stayed on its chosen message. No outside event disrupted the administration's day-to-day goals last week -- the fiscal responsibility summit on Monday, the address to Congress on Tuesday, the budget on Thursday, and the Iraq pullout announcement on Friday. It was an impressive feat for those who admire the ability of any political shop to walk and chew gum at the same time. I hope we have just as much action as messaging this term...

*** The Budget Battle: Meanwhile, the initial battle lines over the president's budget seem to be drawn. It started with Obama's radio address on Saturday, when he said: "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and the lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this: So am I." I notice that the Republicans want to define everything Obama is doing through big-government, big-spending labels. You would think that they had nothing todo with the $10 tillion deficit or 3 million job loss this month...

First Read with NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd,
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