Reply #3: A 'Cassandra' is someone who's right, but no-one believes them at the time

[muriel_volestrangler]

I thought the Weekly Standard was meant to be 'intellectual' - you'd have thought they knew better than to label their opponents 'Cassandras' as if this showed the opponents were wrong in some way.

Cassandra, or Alexandra, was a daughter of Hecuba and King Priam, the rulers of Troy during the Trojan War according to Homer's Iliad. Cassandra was a beautiful young woman, blessed with the gift of prophecy by Apollo, who was infatuated with her. Unfortunately, she shunned Apollo at the last minute and he added a twist to her gift; Cassandra was doomed to tell the truth, but never to be believed. King Priam did not know what to do with her, so he tried to keep Cassandra locked up and out of the way of the warriors of Troy. When Troy finally fell to the Greek invaders, Cassandra was attacked and supposedly raped by the Greek warrior Ajax of Locris, but eventually avenged by Athena. When Cassandra accompanied the Greek hero Agamemnon as his mistress to his homeland, she was killed by his vengeful wife, Clytaemnestra.

http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/imageswomen/papers/fittoncassandra/intro.html