By JAMES TARANTO

CNN's senior political analyst, Gloria Borger, related a very odd quote on yesterday's episode of "CNN Newsroom." Actually she related it twice, first in an interview with anchorman Ali Velshi and later with Wolf Blitzer, whom Velshi describes as "the master of the Best Political Team on Television." She was describing President Obama's efforts to ram through his monstrous health-care proposal over the objections of voters:

Velshi: All right, Gloria, how much of a hint is the president going to make? Or is it not going to be hinted? Is he going to say, "This is the compromise. If you can't find it in yourselves to do it, to support this for Republicans, we're going to get it through the Senate"?

Borger: Right. This isn't going to be subtle at all today. I think this is it. I was speaking with one senior White House adviser just before I came on the air, and he said, think of it this way. This is the last helicopter out of Saigon, OK?

Velshi: Wow.

Borger: So, this means that, take it or leave it, this is your last chance to get on health care. . . .

Blitzer: Gloria, this three-step process that has to go forward within the next few weeks. The House passes the Senate version, the House then makes some changes to the Senate version, and then the Senate passes those changes. It's by no means a done deal that the first step is going to get done.

Borger: No. It's not a done deal, but you know what the president's going to come out and say is, this is the way it has to happen. We've got to have an up-or-down vote.

I was talking with a senior White House adviser today, Wolf, who put it to me this way. He said, "This is the last helicopter out of Saigon," meaning they have made a political decision that they're going to use their Democrats to get this through, because what they need, this aide says, is they need an accomplishment. And they believe that once this passes, people will begin to see the benefits of it, and it will not ricochet against them, but will work for them.

Mark Mardell, North American editor of the BBC, was watching and he blogged in response: "Fleeing a lost war is not the most optimistic metaphor for an adviser to adopt. And it still may go down in flames."

But could Mardell have misunderstood the analogy? Maybe the point of comparison is that the fall of Saigon was a communist takeover.