Three pieces set the stage nicely for today’s House vote: 

• Politico on Nancy Pelosi’s role in getting us past Scott Brown’s election and keeping the White House and the entire Congress on the path to comprehensive health reform. 
• The SF Chronicle, Pelosi’s home town newspaper, make similar points on the Speaker’s leadership.

Both articles cite the depth of the opposition and the polling numbers in ways that seem to buy into the Republican narrative that the country will punish the Democrats in November if health care reform happens.

I don’t buy it. If the House passes the health insurance reform bill today, the narrative shifts. The media is forced to cover the bill accurately and focus on what it does, rather than covering the opposition to it as if it had an intellectual leg to stand on. Obama and Pelosi, and even Harry Reid will be recognized for having fought and won the fight to recognize health care as a right, a battle that has been waged since FDR’s early days. And the American people will begin to recognize that all the dire predictions of the right have been lies. They made the same arguments against Social Security in the ‘30s and Medicare in the ’60s; they were wrong then and they’re wrong now.

And finally, Maureen Dowd is at her best today as she takes Bart Stupak to task and celebrates the leadership of America’s Catholic nuns on this issue as they took on the bishops and stood up for the best traditions of Christian social justice.

If we win today, Nancy Pelosi and the nuns are the heroes of the end game.