Skip ahead to 3:05. It’s one thing to know the end is near, it’s another to hear the ‘Hammer, of all people, acknowledge it. What’s next? Dick and Liz Cheney urging conservatives to reconcile themselves to an Iranian bomb?

Michael Barone’s run the numbers and insists that we’re not licked yet, but he sounds at times like he’s trying to convince himself. Nomentum’s turned to momentum and there are no likely eleventh-hour surprises in the chute. The CBO score is out; the media’s got the pompoms ready to wave for “history”; Obama’s canceled his trip so that he can make the “please save my presidency” bambi eyes at Democratic fencesitters in the Oval Office. Granted, the latest polls are as dismal as ever — 38/48 in Pew and 35/55 in Fox News — but our exalted leaders long ago dismissed the concerns of the ignorant teabaggin’ public, so that’s no roadblock. There’ll be a few more no-to-yes flips tomorrow, we’ll start hearing rumbles that they’re now just two or three votes away, and then … the fateful vote.

I’ll give you one small glimmer of hope. From the Star-Tribune:

Just as President Obama thought single-payer holdout Dennis Kucinich had bought in to the Democrats’ health care package, Minnesota’s own Jim Oberstar is now back in doubt.

Oberstar, after reportedly having words with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appears to have backed off the assurance he gave last weekend, when he said he was “prepared” to vote for health care

He’s still a likely yes. Heart-ache.