That's what she said when she was handed a list of names -- the towers of Jello in her own caucus soiling their pants at the thought that their principles might actually cost them their jobs.

Her aides assumed she would "divvy up the names." She did not divvy up the names.

She took them all. All 68. 136 arms total. And she twisted.

Many Democrats say her upbeat, unflappable attitude buoyed them through the darkest days after Massachusetts. But faced with a member she considered intransigent, she could be "scary tough," as one person involved in her strategy sessions said. She would stand up, her high heels and imperiousness exaggerating her height, and talk sternly.

And the President. He needed to hear it too.

In a series of impassioned conversations, over the telephone and in the Oval Office, she conveyed her frustration to the president, according to four people familiar with the talks. If she and Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, were going to stick out their necks for Mr. Obama’s top legislative priority, Ms. Pelosi wanted assurances that the president would too.

The President stuck out his neck. He led the charge. He dusted off his bully pulpit, outmaneuvered the hapless opposition (90-minute Q&A, Blair House summit), and hammered the truth home at town-hall after town-hall.

And all the while, in the halls of Congress, the Speaker twisted & cajoled.

They became a tag-team of sorts. "The two of them became real partners," said one person close to both.

"The main thing was Pelosi sticking with it and doing the quiet work of bringing people back to saying, ‘We’re doing this,’ " said John D. Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. "It was almost illusionist, drawing your attention to something that isn’t important, so that you’re not watching what’s happening, which really is important."

When the history of health care reform is written, President Obama's name will be trumpeted, as well it should be, as the driving force that got the ball rolling, kept the ball rolling, and got it done.

But I for one will also remember another driving force -- one that helped shepherd this battered and bleeding sheep of a bill through the legislative slaughterhouse called Congress.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi.