In the early January interview with H.W. Brands’ for this article, his closing comment about President Barack Obama’s health care reform was a harbinger of the Jan. 19 election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy: “But it [health care] may well fall apart still. The Republicans have been back in their home districts and states revving up opposition and if the Democrats lose a single vote in the Senate they might lose the whole thing.” Brands, author and UT’s Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History, was one of nine presidential historians invited to an intimate White House dinner with U.S. President Barack Obama last June. Other scholars included Michael Beschloss, Douglas Brinkley, Robert Caro, Robert Dallek, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Kennedy, Kenneth Mack and Garry Wills.