Well, Ah'll Be…

Someone in the mainstream media groks the generational divide. This is from Newsweek's Jonathan Alter.

Twilight Of the Baby Boom
A generational struggle is underway. What's so unusual is it's taking place within a single generation.

He [Obama] also represents a new generation of leadership, even though technically he's part of the same generation as Hillary, the baby boomers. Here's where it gets a bit complicated. This tussle pits an Early Boomer vs. a Late Boomer, and the two cohorts have little in common.

Analyzing politics generationally is hazardous. Large numbers of voters and politicians defy the easy categories assigned to them. In the case of boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964—the whole frame is wrong. It's based on birthrates, not common cultural and political affinities. Many quintessential boomer figures like Jimi Hendrix (born 1942) and Abbie Hoffman (born 1936) weren't actually in the demographic at all.

Worse, the Early Boomer sensibility gets all the attention. Five decades of newsmagazine boomer cover stories have focused on the (often narcissistic) preoccupations of the Woodstock generation as it ages. But those boomers born after 1955, now mostly in their 40s, missed Woodstock (unless a few snuck in as 14-year-olds). Our coming-of-age decade was the 1970s, not the 1960s. Our presidents were Carter and Reagan, not JFK, LBJ and Nixon. Our calling card was irony, not rebellion.…

…at least he [Obama] understands the argument. In late 2004, I interviewed the newly elected senator for what would become the first newsmagazine cover story about him or any Late Boomer politician. What I remember most from that day was his insistence that we stop "re-litigating the 1960s." Nowadays he's dropped that lawyer talk, but not the idea. Well before he challenged the Clintons, Obama rejected what he called "the same old arguments" between left and right. His campaign is about "turning the page," not just from BushClintonBushClinton, but from the cultural contentiousness of those years.

And if that page gets turned, as I hope and pray that it does, I'll be dancing in the goddamn streets.