Obama & Napoleon

Historical analogies are always fun! Health Care reform was going to be, as Senator Jim DeMint argued, “Obama’s Waterloo”. Now that it haspassed conservatives are having to rethink that. The eternally optimistic Bill Kristol winds the clock back a bit and argues that, actually, HCR is Obama’s Borodino*:

Last night’s victory was the culmination of Obama’s health care effort, which has been his version of  Napoleon’s Russia campaign. He won a short-term victory, but one that will turn out to mark an inflection point on the road to defeat, and the beginning of the end of the Democratic party’s dominance** over American politics. Last night was Obama’s Borodino. Obama’s Waterloo will be November 6, 2012.

But what it Obama isn’t Napoleon? What if, instead, the part of Napoleon has been played by health care reform’s opponents? After all, they’ve had the upper hand for many years and it’s the advocates of reform who have wondered, often despairingly, whether they might ever prevail against an implacable, seemingly unbeatable foe that has dominated the political map for decades.