Administration Official: “Sebelius Misspoke.”  —  An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “misspoke” when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option “is not an essential part” of reform.

Telling Grandma ‘No’  —  When Democratic congressmen dream these days, they're tongue-tied in town halls, fumbling with their microphones while they're shouted down by slavering, pitchfork-wielding Limbaugh listeners.  —  But Barack Obama is wiser than most Democratic congressmen, and his nightmares are savvier.

Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors  —  SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.  —  Dr. Anne Doig says patients …

Poll: 57% don't see stimulus working  —  WASHINGTON — Six months after President Obama launched a $787 billion plan to right the nation's economy, a majority of Americans think the avalanche of new federal aid has cost too much and done too little to end the recession.  —  POLL RESULTS: Six questions

The Swiss Menace  —  It was the blooper heard round the world.  In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor's Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking …

Pentagon Worries Led to Command Change  —  McKiernan's Ouster Reflected New Realities in Afghanistan — and Washington  —  In mid-March, as a White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan was nearing completion, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen …

Obama Misread His Mandate  —  After a rough week for health care reform, Democratic leaders appear to be pulling back on their demand for a public option.  It remains to be seen whether liberal Democrats, especially in the House where they are more numerous, will go along with this.

Tom DeLay on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ — It's Hammer Time!  —  Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, will be a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” when the popular ABC show premieres Sept. 21.  And, before you laugh or think this is going to be a joke …

Time to Legalize Drugs  —  Undercover Baltimore police officer Dante Arthur was doing what he does well, arresting drug dealers, when he approached a group in January.  What he didn't know was that one of suspects knew from a previous arrest that Arthur was police.  Arthur was shot twice in the face.

ORRIN HATCH, PAINFULLY CONFUSED.... It's frightening to think this guys was involved for months with the center-right negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee.  —  On ABC's “This Week” yesterday, Jake Tapper asked Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah a good question.

Rationing and Rationality  —  Defined at a high level of abstraction, rationing is inevitable in medicine.  Not everything that might be in a patient's best interest can be done in a world of finite resources, and some constraint has to limit his treatment.  Thus the left-wing jibe that the market features “rationing by price.”

Truth and not-quite-truth in the health reform debate  —  As chairman of the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group, Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, knows a thing or two about health care.  But some of what he knows just isn't true.  —  “I'm 59,” Mr. Blunt said last week during a meeting with Post-Dispatch reporters and editors.