Abraham Lincoln is to Barack Obama as John WIlkes Booth is to Tom Cruise?

My mother was recently looking through some newspaper clippings from 1863. She's program director at a museum Ohio, so yes, this is a thing she does. She came across an article about John Wilkes Booth.

Booth, and his father and brothers, were all well-known, celebrated actors. Booth had toured with a production of Hamlet in 1863 that had come through Cleveland in November of that year. It met with warm reviews, and theater lovers were encouraged to go see his performance.

It's chilling to think that a year and half later, Booth assassinated the President, effectively destroying reconstruction and fucking up the next 150 years of U.S. history.

He was a celebrity--yes, everyone knew he was a little eccentric, a southern sympathizer, and a bit of a rougue--but did anyone suspect he was capable of murder?

It would be like if Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson assassinated Barack Obama.

And that's why it frightens me a little when Obama invokes the image of Lincoln, or the press compares him to JFK. They were two of our greatest presidents, and they were both assassinated. Although many people loved them, those who didn't really, truly hated them.

The Lincoln Assassination
John Wilkes Booth