DOUBLING DOWN ON FAILURE:

President To Flesh Out His Vision In Speech: Address to Congress Is Effort To Seize Control of the Debate (Anne E. Kornblut, Ceci Connolly and Shailagh Murray, 9/03/09, Washington Post)

The White House is scrambling to take control of the health-care debate after watching from the sidelines as various Democratic proposals were assailed in town hall meetings during Congress's summer recess. "Clearly, over the August break we lost some momentum," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "It shows the president is in this fight for keeps; he's not backing off. He's doing just the right thing to take the momentum back."

White House advisers acknowledged that the president has begun to shift away from endorsing broad goals while allowing the legislative process to run its course. Early on, senior adviser David Axelrod said, Obama "was very clear about his principles."

"But now we're in a different phase," he added.

For better or worse, the high-profile speech is likely to tie Obama closer to the issue in the minds of Americans. Almost exactly 16 years ago, then-President Bill Clinton also attempted to break a logjam on health care in Congress with a prime-time address to lawmakers, and his administration's efforts ended in spectacular failure.