From Keith Hennessey, here is his take on the public optimism of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the Obama administration display with regard to the vote in the House on Obamacare:

Public signs of optimism from the President, his team, and Democratic Congressional leaders tell us little.  We don’t know if they actually think they will have the votes, or if they are asserting that to try to make it true.  Imagine the impact if Speaker Pelosi were to tell the press “We might not succeed.”  Doing so would further embolden those marginal Members she is trying to convince to vote aye.  They are telling us they think they will succeed, but they have to say this whether or not it’s true.

And via Megan McArdle this observation:

Jonathan Bernstein says that healthcare can’t fail:

At this point, the main basis I have for believing the health care reform bill will pass (here’s my latest while I was at the Dish…for perspective, here’s Jonathan clubber Chait’s view, and here’s Nate Silver’s take) is that I would be shocked if Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Henry Waxman moved things to this stage without knowing they could get the votes. We’re talking about some very skilled pols, here.

McArdle sums up the back and forth nicely:

They’re both right!  Where does that leave us?  At a defining moment in American legislative history . . . the Mothra v. Godzilla, irresistable force v. immovable object, rock v. hard place of policymaking.  It can’t pass and it can’t fail.  Yet it must do one or the other.