McCain and Abel

"Able was I ere I saw Elba."

So declared Napoleon upon first losing his crown.
And indeed he was at a loss the second time around.
When he re-landed in France and tried to take the country by storm,
His emperor's clothes no longer fit form.
100 days later Napoleon's second reign concluded,
And his red-faced surrender caught him denuded.

Like his counter-Bona-parte who took two grabs at the crown,
JmC should have learned from his first go-around.
That his second attempt at the GOP throne,
Has left him standing on stage holding no micro-phone.
McCain's unbending support for the war in Iraq,
Is odd for a man who went to 'Nam and came back.
And then there's the matter of his ex- principled stance,
Concerning that baby of his, campaign-finance.

Jealousy led Cain to kill Abel,
But now poses a linguistic reversal of that biblical fable.
For Able no longer defines his brother Mc-Cain,
Rendering him unable to save his presidential campaign.
And thus JmC will soon be forced to bow out,
Of a race in which before, he had left no doubt;
That the GOP crown would be placed on his head,
Giving his maverick pontificating the ultimate cred.

John McCain should have perhaps predicted this ending,
Had he aspired to a more historical comprehending.
Remember Napoleon's nephew, Louis Bonaparte?
He too sought the crown but failed from the start.
"History always repeats itself," noted Karl Marx,
"The first time as tragedy, the second as farce."