The Misterio Tremendum

I like him. I really liked this Andrew Sullivan article in The Atlantic about why Barak matters, which basically says that much of the political conversation of today is a rehashing of old animosities that have been the focal point of the baby-boom generation. Like the Vietnam argument. The reality is that while I am all about being in touch with our history, and especially our very recent 30 years ago history, the baby boomers are stuck as a group. They have too much baggage. The old left and right hate each other too much, and for reasons that are often spurious. They are like a divorced couple that has too much history to even know what common ground is anymore. The young people don’t understand this. We don’t get the vitriolic “culture wars” of O’reily (sp?) and Pat Robertson. We don’t get Norman Mailer, or what he did. This is a new time, and while the problems are similar, the conversation must change for us to get anywhere. If Clinton becomes president it will be same-old same-old; fighting the wars of our parents. And through no fault of her own, but simply because of who she has been for the past 40 years and how she is perceived. I know this is straight out of the Obama-for-president text book, but I believe he will move us beyond this stale and out-dated conversation into something different. Not revolutionary. Not world altering (well, maybe world altering). But certainly very different. And that’s what we want, isn’t it?
So, let us toast to Iowa, Sen. Obama. Here’s to a crushing defeat of the old guard.