With President Obama set to address a joint session of Congress onWednesday, the debate is raging over the healthcare endgame: CanPresident Obama regain momentum? Will he hang on to the public option asa critical part of healthcare reform, or throw the public plan underthe bus? If he does, how should progressives react? I’ll be discussingthe President’s final push this Sunday, as part of ABC’s This Week withGeorge Stephanopoulos. (10 AM in mostmarkets but check local listings) I’ll be joined on the roundtable byMatthew Dowd, David Sanger and George Will, so you can expect somediscussion of Afghanistan as well. Will came out this week with a callfor the US to leave Afghanistan, putting the conservative Will on thesame page as The Nation.

We’ll have full coverage of the President’s speech at TheNation.com nextweek, and I’ll be previewing it on two MSNBC shows on Wednesday: MorningJoe early; The Ed Show at 6PM, followed by a discussion at 1:30PM onThursday with Air America’s Jack Rice about how the president did andwhat comes next.

What do you think President Obama should say? Take our poll.

In other news around The Nation this week:

•We’re excited about our special issue, “Food for All.” A departure from some of our past coverage of “food politics,” like our 2006 special issue that focused primarily on what we eat, “Food for All” looks at the new fronts in themovement for food access and democratization of our food issue. Aninteresting thread runs through the issue: communities using food,farming and sustainable agriculture as ways to lift themselves up out ofpoverty, and deal with the impacts of the recession. Grace Lee Boggs(Detroit) Dayo Olopade (New Orleans) and Habiba Alcindor (Mississippi)each spotlight communities that are turning to agriculture and farmingin response to economic (or natural) catastrophes. All the more reasonto read and implement our newest “Ten Things,” this month “Ten Things You Can do To Start a Community Garden.”

•Tickets are still available to our first of two Nation salons this fall, “What Will Become of the News.” Legendary newscaster Dan Rather, best-selling author and investigative journalist Jane Mayer and pioneering blogger Marcy Wheeler will take on the question of what our media will look like in fiveyears, and how the changes in journalism with impact political coverageand reporting. There will be plenty of time for audience questions, plusa cocktail reception, a Nation subscription, a book–don’t miss it.

•Finally, two television appearances of note:Here is The Nation‘s Jeremy Scahill on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermanndiscussing our “outsourced war:” the use of military contractors inAfghanistan. And here’s video from Friday morning of Max Blumenthaldiscussing his new Nation Books title, Republican Gomorrah: Inside theMovement that Shattered the Party.

Enjoy your weekend.