8 a.m. ET: Oct. 2 could end up being one of the Obama administration's better days, as health-care reform cleared a key hurdle this morning and the president made an in-person pitch that may have secured the 2016 Olympics for his hometown.

The Senate Finance Committee finished slogging its way through hundreds of amendments in the wee hours of Friday morning, setting up a final committee vote next week and the next stage in the reform fight. "As the panel completed the measure that is expected to form the backbone of health-reform legislation, a political consensus large enough to carry the plan to final passage appeared to emerge," the Washington Post writes. The way forward is less than clear, as Senate leaders must produce a combined bill and then navigate it through another barrage of amendments on the floor. Harry Reid said Thursday, "We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," though it's not clear exactly what he meant. Will Tom Carper's compromise proposal to give states the option of including a public plan be enough to assuage liberals? Jonathan Cohn points out that the bill already appears to give states that option, based on language that Ron Wyden successfully added before the markup began.

Across the aisle, the New York Times observes that Republicans "have seized on a new line of attack: that the proposed overhaul is a vehicle for a barrage of hidden and not-so-hidden tax increases." Actually, the line of attack is not so new, but it has gotten louder in recent days as Democrats' reform plans have inched closer to reality. John Boehner claimed Thursday that he had not met "anyone" in his travels who actually supported a public option, and claimed the idea was "about as unpopular as a garlic milkshake." Predictably, that brought forth a parade of Democrats accusing the Republican leader of being out-of-touch, and some angry garlic aficionados. Conservatives are also concerned about this twist: Following the example of the government's crackdown on companies that got financial bailouts, the Finance panel voted to limit the compensation for executives at health insurance companies that get significantly more business as a result of health-care reform, the Wall Street Journal notes.

Will John Ensign be in the Senate to vote on the final health-care bill? Probably so, but anything seems possible now that the New York Times has dropped a bombshell on the Nevada Republican, reporting that he and his office intervened to help the lobbying clients of Doug Hampton, his ex-aide and the husband of his former mistress. Ensign "arranged for Mr. Hampton to join a political consulting firm and lined up several donors as his lobbying clients," the Times writes. "Mr. Ensign and his staff then repeatedly intervened on the companies’ behalf with federal agencies, often after urging from Mr. Hampton. While the affair made national news in June, the role that Mr. Ensign played in assisting Mr. Hampton and helping his clients has not been previously disclosed. Several experts say those activities may have violated an ethics law that bars senior aides from lobbying the Senate for a year after leaving their posts."

The president and the first lady have already left Copenhagen, where they made their pitch Friday to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. It's still unclear whether his personal appearance will be enough to lift his hometown over Rio de Janeiro's bid when the International Olympic Committee votes a few hours from now, but it can't be a bad thing that IOC members were reportedly eager to meet Obama and take pictures with him. On the other hand, the Chicago Tribune reports, "The Chicago presentation seemed to lack an overarching theme, touching on many aspects. Some media observers felt that, with the exception of the Obamas, much of Chicago's presentation was a bit flat." There's also the inconvenient fact that not everyone in Chicago even wants the Olympics there.

On Afghanistan, it increasingly appears that the Obama administration is laying the groundwork to reject Stanley McChrystal's request for up to 40,000 more troops for the war effort. On Thursday, we learned that Robert Gates has doubts about the efficacy of sending more troops, a stance that could give Obama some cover with moderates. Today, the Washington Post reports, "Senior White House officials have begun to make the case for a policy shift in Afghanistan that would send few, if any, new combat troops to the country and instead focus on faster military training of Afghan forces, continued assassinations of al-Qaeda leaders and support for the government of neighboring Pakistan in its fight against the Taliban."

McChrystal himself is pushing back against that effort, saying Thursday in London that “a strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy.” (Reports this morning indicate that Obama held a short in-person meeting with McChrystal in Copenhagen.) The Senate voted Thursday to require McChrystal and other administration officials to testify on their plans for Afghanistan, but did not set a deadline for them to appear. Walter Shapiro compares this war to another long conflict: "The dilemma facing the best and the brightest of the Obama administration is in many ways reminiscent of the predicament that confronted Lyndon Johnson in early 1965 as he found himself staring bleakly at a fork in the road in Vietnam."

The U.S. and other major powers appear to have struck a deal with Iran, under which the country would send most of its uranium to Russia and allow international inspections of its facilities in order to avoid tough economic sanctions. Iran's concession may be aimed at one particular party to the talks. "Russia has been a defender of Iran," the Los Angeles Times notes, "and might be the most likely to argue that minimal cooperation was enough to justify further meetings instead of a turn to discussions on tougher economic sanctions." But Charles Krauthammer mocks Obama's stance toward Russia, particularly on missile defense: "When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom."