I entered college at the end of the 1960s, that mythic time in America when the youth culture, via the magic of "drugs, sex, and rock & roll", discovered that they were too precious for anything as mundane as joining the bourgeoisie. We imagined that the world we "Imagined" would be the world we inherited if only we loved each other enough. The 1960s were, not surprisingly, a decade when reality was merely an inconvenient annoyance; we had more important things on our plate.
At many colleges there was a significant divide in the student body. The "Freaks" or Hippies were those who preferred Marijuana and hallucinogens as their intoxicant of choice, wore their hair long, eschewed such bourgeois affectations as bras for women (considered a significant perc by many of the male Freaks who were quite convincing in their support of the lore of free love), avoided politics unless there was mockery involved (remember the Yippies) and were, in general, classic cases of pampered, cosseted, narcissistic adolescents who neglected to make the necessary transition into young adulthood. At the other extreme were the "Clubbies" or Frat Boys. They disdained the Freaks, wore their hair shorter, preferred beer to Marijuana, and, while no less fervent in their devotion to free love, were more circumspect about the whole thing. To use a 1950s archaic term, the Freaks considered the Clubbies to be "squares" and the Clubbies considered the Freaks to be losers and dope fiends. In reality, the Clubbies, while affecting a more Preppy look were, in reality, no more mature than the Freaks.
Tom Barnett, in a post discussing a David Brooks essay in the Times regarding the Libby pardon, makes some excellent points:
Great piece by Brooks on Libby case
The best parts are when he compares the stunning hypocrisy of Left and Right across the Monica and Libby cases.
Bottom line: Boomers simply suck as politicians. Born of Watergate and Vietnam, they replay these shows over and over again to no useful leadership outcomes. I want them off-stage so bad it hurts. [Emphasis mine-SW]
Tom Barnett is a bit too sanguine about Hillary Clinton for my taste but I think his arguments for Rudy Giuliani resonate with my sense of the Mayor. However, his point that Boomers make terrible politicians strikes home.
Boomers make terrible politicians due to a combination of factors, exemplified by our last two Presidents, one a Freak and one a Clubbie, both of questionable maturity for extended portions of their adult life.
Being a good politician requires having a core set of idealistic values and the requisite cynicism to tolerate bending one's idealism to mesh with reality as closely as possible. Both Clinton and Bush came to adulthood with no obvious set of core ideals. Clinton's Presidency was marked by no issues momentous enough to elicit or test his core. As if in continuation of the Freaks quest for hedonic pleasures, Clinton governed as if his primary concern was being adored by his subjects, whether foreign dignitaries or White House interns.
Until 9/11, Bush gave every indication of running the country as an extended Frat party, with inane nicknames and back slapping japes.
Of note, neither man had ever really been tested in any meaningful way. Rather than maturing into adulthood, they were able to sustain an extended adolescent where events rarely had serious consequences; in truth, neither man (indeed a fair portion of my cohort) never matured because we never had to mature. Life for a post-war baby boomer was always easy. It is true that we grew up with the specter of nuclear annihilation looming over our heads, but that was no incentive to grow up; it was more of an incentive to party and not worry overly much about the morrow, which might not arrive in any event.
9/11, which supposedly changed everything, though what exactly has changed in our political life 6 years later is often hard to discern, offered a test which Clinton avoided but Bush had to face. We filled President Bush with our need for leadership and he offered his best, his spontaneous bull horn act vowing that our enemies would hear from us. He gave some (a few) excellent speeches offering our determination to avenge our losses and assure our enemies that they would never again have the ability to harm us so dearly. Yet as time went on, and the Iraq War's prosecution began to resemble the kind of half hearted warfare the Baby Boomers knew and most certainly did not love from our past, the unavoidable whispers grew. Perhaps Bush, despite his best intentions, was simply inadequate to the task; his prosecution of the information war has certainly been deplorable.
Some men faced with adversity rise to the challenge. Too many baby Boomers, faced with adversity, rise to the appearance of rising to the challenge.
Finally, the surge is working, possibly too little too late, but what is most disheartening is the sense that President Bush never was able to come to grips with the need to work as an adult through the political process. Certainly he faced the kind of opposition that only narcissistic baby boomers could muster; offended by the ascension of a Clubbie who claimed he would succeed when a Freak had failed, Boomer-freak narcissism demanded that Bush fail at least as miserably as their champion had failed.
It is past time for the country to move on. We cannot afford 18 months of Freaks and Clubbies, playing at adulthood, behaving like irresponsible adolescents. Worse, if the next President is a representative of these classes, we will face an additional 4-8 years of stasis and turmoil, where the enemy is mistakenly taken to be the other half of the culture war that still has not been resolved 40 years after the 1960 should have faded into blessed oblivion.
Perhaps some of the appeal of Giuliani is that he embodies yet a different type from the 60s, the non-Freak, non-Clubbie, nerdy straight arrow. Mitt Romney embodies some of the same traits but in addition is a political rare avis, a Mormon. Finally, Barak Obama has the virtue of escaping the demographic quagmire of the 60s, while Fred Thompson seems to be a throwback to an older, more mature cohort.
If the country is truly ready (desperate?) to put the 60s generation into their proper place, partying in adult communities for example, Hillary will have a difficult time gaining the White House.
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