Posted by
ApolloSpeaks on Friday, July 31, 2009 12:21:37 PM
There will be no Waterloos for Barack Obama; no final or decisive defeats deciding the fate of his tragic presidency. Obama will either bleed to death by a thousand cuts, leaving office like LBJ a disillusioned and broken man; or, like Harding and JFK-two senators turned president-Providence will drop the sword and suddenly take him from us before he finishes his term-which would be an act of Divine Mercy if the many predictions of a coming catastrophe materialize.
These two senarios will be explored in my upcoming works: The Rise and Fall of Barack Obama and Barack Obama and the "Curse" of the Kennedys. A preview of the later work can be seen here.
Postscript: Al Gore, Florida and the Waterloo of American Politics
Waterloo is not simply symbolic of a great defeat but of the loser coming close to victory, as Napoleon came close to defeating Wellington. In my opinion, the great Waterloo of American political history was Al Gore losing the 2000 presidential race in Florida to George W. Bush by a hair. Ironically, Gore's last campaign stop was Tampa, Florida which was preceded by a rally at Waterloo, Iowa. After his stop at Tampa, in the state where he would meet his Waterloo, Gore returned home to Carthage, Mississippi. Carthage is a town named after the ancient North African city state that came close to defeating Rome in the Second Punic War under the leadership of Hannibal. From Waterloo to Tampa and then on to Catharge the signs were badly aligned for an Al Gore victory.