The Oct. 30 agreement, in fact, leaves it to the Honduran congress to decide whether the leftist Zelaya should be restored before the presidential vote (in which he's not a candidate). But Zelaya, still holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa since sneaking back into the country from exile in September, appears to have grossly miscalculated the odds of the legislature voting in his favor, and that leaves a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the accord. On Friday, Zelaya told Radio Globo that the accord was "dead," adding that there was "no sense in deceiving Hondurans."

It ought to have been apparent to Zelaya that when the pact was inked, only a quarter of the chamber's 128 deputies backed his reinstatement - even his ruling Liberal Party is split on the issue - and the math has barely budged since then. U.S. officials say they hoped that four months after the coup, the congress would be less of an anti-Zelaya hothouse and therefore more amenable to letting him finish the last three months of his term as the democratically elected President.

There are a dozen first-term Democrats representing districts that Republican presidential nominee John McCain won last year. So far, six have announced that they will vote against their party's health care bill.

Update, 5:43 p.m. ET: Now there are seven. The New York Daily News has just published a statement from hometown Rep. Michael McMahon, D-N.Y. He's in the no column. "I believe the net negatives of this bill outweight the positive effects," McMahon says.

Five of those announcements came today. All of the lawmakers who announced opposition cited concerns about the price tag of the legislation, estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be more than $1 trillion over 10 years.

But the Ellsworth amendment, which House leaders have said they may incorporate into the bill, also has sparked a furious backlash among national, state and local anti-abortion groups who typically support Ellsworth.

Pitted against the Ellsworth amendment are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Right to Life Committee, Indiana Right to Life and Vanderburgh County Right to Life.

"It was a bayonet in the back from someone who said he was on our side," said Doug Johnson, Washington, D.C.-based legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. [...]

The crux of the Right to Life case against the Ellsworth amendment is that it does not strike what Johnson calls "trump-all" language in the health care reform bill that states, "Nothing in this Act shall be construed as preventing the public health insurance option from providing for or prohibiting coverage of services described in paragraph (4)(A)."

The services described in paragraph (4)(A) are "abortions for which the expenditure of federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is not permitted."

The apparent problem: Democrats have yet to resolve intraparty disputes over abortion funding and illegal immigrants' access to health care.

Others make a similar argument with a different ideology: If only more conservatives were nominated, such as Doug Hoffman in New York's 23rd Congressional District, the party might be pure enough to excite the base. Liberal Republicans who eventually endorse Democrats, such as Hoffman's opponent, should probably expect a conservative primary challenge. But this strategy is self-destructive when universalized. Would Republican appeal throughout the Northeast really be expanded by more ideological nominees? Though the Republican Party will remain the conservative party nationally, it is not possible for Republicans to win everywhere with an identical conservative message.

The Republican candidates who won on Tuesday were generally conservative, but not angry. They were supported by the Republican base but spent most of their time reaching toward the middle. It was a center-right victory in a center-right country.

Politicians who have run for governor -- say, Bill Clinton -- had a good feel for the politics of the center. Obama has yet to demonstrate it. According to the White House, on election night he was "not watching returns" -- displaying a French monarch's indifference to America's shifting middle.

Now comes Obama's largest test, which will determine the ideological atmosphere for the 2010 election. If the president -- opposed by a majority of Americans, with almost no support from the other party -- imposes an ideologically divisive health reform, it will smack of radicalism, reinforce polarization and may cede the ideological center to Republicans for years to come.

The higher premium level would cause others who are currently insured to drop coverage, pushing premiums even higher. The result would be a spiral of rising premiums and shrinking numbers of insured.

In an attempt to prevent this, the draft legislation provides penalties for individuals who choose not to buy insurance and for employers that do not offer health insurance. But the levels of these fines are generally too low to cause a rational individual to insure.

Consider: 27 million people are covered by health insurance purchased directly, i.e. outside employer-based plans. The average cost of an insurance policy with family coverage in 2009 is $13,375. A married couple with a median family income of $75,000 who choose not to insure would be subject to a fine of 2.5 percent of that $75,000, or $1,875. So the family would save a net $11,500 by not insuring. If a serious illness occurs -- a chronic condition or a condition that requires surgery -- they could then buy insurance. Since fewer than one family in four has annual health-care costs that exceed $10,000, the decision to drop coverage looks like a good bet. For a lower-income family, the fine is smaller, and the incentive to be uninsured is even greater.

Congressional Hispanics have threatened to vote against the bill because of a last-minute threat from within the Democratic Caucus to bolster the House bill’s immigration restrictions to match those included in the Senate Finance bill.

While pushing more spending in those areas, Ms. Landrieu also wants the plan to cut the overall amount the nation spends on health care.

Napolitano, who was a defendant in the litigation, has stated that she believes the law is constitutional, but business groups and immigration reform advocates generally in President Barack Obama’s camp are asking the Supreme Court to strike down the statute.

“It is awkward, given the fact that she signed the law,” said Glenn Hamer of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, one of the organizations asking the Supreme Court to take up the issue. “It’s got to be a difficult situation for the administration.”

In his most intimate interview so far, he said he prayed regularly but did not feel he had “a direct line” to God.

“If you are asking, do I drop to my knees and pray for guidance, no,” he said, adding that he had been a “questioning Christian” who struggled with tenets like the virgin birth.

“But do I have faith and is it important, yes. It's not always the rock that perhaps it should be.” [...]

David Cameron gave his strongest backing yet to London's long-awaited Crossrail scheme.

He said he had studied "all the economic arguments" and concluded that Crossrail could transform the capital.

"I think Crossrail has that transformational capability, to make London a more effective and economically successful city," he said.

"I back Crossrail. I want Crossrail to go ahead."

His comments will be a huge boost to Mayor Boris Johnson who is fighting to ensure the £16 billion east-west line is under construction in time for his re-election campaign.

JACK: It’s after six. What am I, a farmer?