Modern Day Woodrow Wilson?

"There is more than a passing similarity between Obama's health care battle and Woodrow Wilson's campaign for the League of Nations; there are also striking similarities between the men themselves.... Like Wilson, Obama is a self-styled progressive who is deeply skeptical of the Founders' creation. Like Wilson, Obama is firmly convinced of his own rectitude and his moral superiority over his political foes. As with Wilson, this makes Obama firmly opposed to compromise with these foes; he views compromise as betrayal of a fundamental belief, and as Wilson did, he views his opponents as morally defective. Obama, like Wilson, is a Nobel Peace Price winner (although Wilson actually did something to merit it)....

"Wilson's failure to compromise on the League is considered one of the greatest failures by an American president. Obama may well succeed... in the narrow sense of seeing his initiative passed into law, but regardless of whether he does or not, he and his party will reap a political whirlwind. Wilson's political misjudgment cost America, and the world, in the balance of the 20th century. Obama's political misjudgment is likely to be very expensive for America in the balance of the 21st."

-- Craig Pirrong, University of Houston