I had thought that Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) had been exaggerating, and perhaps unwise in his choice of words, when he said that a defeat on his health-care proposals would be President Obama’s “Waterloo.” But apparently President Obama sees the issue similarly:

“Let’s just lay everything on the table,” Grassley said. “A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made . . . and the president says, ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.’ “

Like I said, I first thought the Waterloo comparison was silly, but maybe this does end with Obama exiled on the island of Saint Helena.