**Health Care
*The Hill: "House Democrats have started to pick up the pieces on healthcare reform, but they face a difficult month at home defending their legislation to skeptical constituents. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday laid the groundwork for their defense. She blamed the health insurance industry and urged her members to do the same during their four-week break."

*Politico: "A day after some unexpectedly positive signs for health care reform in Congress, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Thursday that his committee would be unable to complete work on a bill before the August recess.

*"The pressure is on Waxman's Energy and Commerce Committee to finish Friday because that's when the House is scheduled to recess for a month. The goal is more modest than President Obama's initial deadline of floor passage by this week, but at least Democrats could go home and report progress toward a plan," Politics Daily reports.

*The DCCC announced this morning it "is launching a month-long major advertising and grassroots offensive against more than two-dozen targeted Republicans on health insurance reform." The offensive is called "Health Care ER" and includes radio ads (at saturation levels in 8 districts), live calls, robocalls and e-mails.

*New York Times: "It took Representative Dan Maffei of New York two tries, $4 million and the retirement of a Republican incumbent to win his House seat last year. After all that, he wants to avoid becoming a one-term wonder because of an unpopular vote on health care ... Of 35 first-term Democrats, Mr. Maffei, who represents the Syracuse area, and 25 others occupy suburban, small-town and rural seats they took out of Republican hands, seats Republicans are eager to take back. As a result, junior Democrats want to be sure the emerging health care plan is one they can embrace, particularly after they have already had to cast a difficult vote on climate-change legislation."

**President Obama
*AP: "With mugs of beer and calming words, President Barack Obama and the professor and policeman engulfed in a national uproar over race pledged Thursday to move on and try to pull the country with them."

*After the meeting, Henry Louis Gates posted a statement. "The national conversation over the past week about my arrest has been rowdy, not to say tumultuous and unruly. But we've learned that we can have our differences without demonizing one another. There's reason to hope that many people have emerged with greater sympathy for the daily perils of policing, on the one hand, and for the genuine fears about racial profiling, on the other hand."

*At his post-game press conference, Sergeant Crowley said no one apologized. Mike asked if Obama expressed any further regret for having said the police acted "stupidly." "Parts of that conversation are private," he said. "We understood that going into it. It would be best to honor that agreement." He also said Biden "was just a great man," and mainly shared stories unrelated to all this.

*Time's Scherer has a good write-up. "The photo op can be a particularly nefarious beast for a healthy democracy. ... They really did sit there drinking beer at a table--but something entirely contrived to look uncontrived. Consider the dozens of journalists milling about a few dozen feet away, the aides herding them like cattle. The four men pretended it wasn't happening. Obama snuck some peanuts. Biden cracked a smile. Crowley adjusted his tie. Gates spoke. None did the obvious thing by acknowledging the absurdity of pretending not to be watched. None broke the allusion of the fourth wall."

*Meanwhile, real news: "The U.S. general in charge of turning around the war in Afghanistan is likely to recommend significant changes to U.S. and NATO operations, military officials and others familiar with his forthcoming report said. Those changes could include additional U.S. troops despite political headwind against further expansion of the war."

*A new Daily Kos/Research2000 poll puts Obama's favorability at 62 percent. The real interesting number: 77% of Americans believe President Obama was born in the United States, while 11% do not. Among Republicans, only 42 percent think he's a citizen, while 28 percent do not.

*Jules Witcover looks at Joe Biden's role six months in. "He has from all appearances made a good start, if only because nobody is suggesting, as often was the case with Cheney, that Biden is really running the country. Nor has there been talk of the vice president stealthily at work from an "undisclosed location," whispering conspiratorially into the ear of the president."

*Too much of a good thing? Wall Street Journal: "White House officials and lawmakers were studying late Thursday how to keep alive the government's cash-for-clunkers incentive program because of concerns the program's $1 billion budget may have been exhausted after just one week." But Bloomberg reports that U.S. auto sales "may reach a 2009 high" because of the program.

**Campaign Stuff
*According to National Journal's bi-weekly Congressional Insiders Poll, 54% of Democrats in Congress say moderate Dems are hurting their re-election prospects by resisting President Obama's legislative agenda. Forty-one percent of Dems said they were helping their prospects, as did 86% of Republicans.

*Tim Pawlenty was the headliner yesterday at the RNC meeting. "To rouse the crowd, Pawlenty took some serious shots at the party's nemesis: President Barack Obama," the hometown Star Tribune reports. "In the eyes of many, President Obama is cool, cool, cool. But the American people are figuring out that he is wrong, wrong, wrong," Pawlenty said.

AP: "To move forward at a time when Republican numbers are shrinking in many states, the party should show 'respect of those who don't agree with us,' Pawlenty said." "Let's make sure that we welcome others who are not yet Republicans," he said.

Jonathan Martin adds that Pawlenty "sat with the Chairmen of the Iowa and New Hampshire state parties at the lunch and courted party leaders behind the scenes."

*Meanwhile, more staff confusion? CNN: "Despite an earlier announcement from a California Republican womens group, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will not be speaking to an event sponsored by the group scheduled for next weekend at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, a spokeswoman for her political action committee said Thursday night."

*The Hill's Reid Wilson, likely enjoying his expense account while in San Diego, writes about some lingering tensions at the RNC gathering. The flashpoint: "Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party and a key ally of RNC Chairman Michael Steele, is running to head the party's influential Rules Committee, with Steele's backing. That doesn't sit well with some conservatives, who see Greer as a centrist." Former South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson told the Washington Times: "Greer is the single most disliked guy on the RNC -- that would be my guess."

*NC Sen: "Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy has been talking with political consultants and potential supporters about the idea of his running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Richard Burr," the Herald Sun reports.

**TV Alert: The cast of "Seinfeld" will reunite on Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." The new season starts September 20.

--Kyle Trygstad and Mike Memoli