B.O.: Boom Over?

On the talking heads shows today, "sources" who have been speaking informally with Barack Obama have informed us that he says, in effect, "The boomers decided back in the '60's to hate each other, but we're past that now. We're coming together."

I think that's OK, and very perceptive in its way, as long as we get one thing straight: the only politicians who have a right to criticize the boomers are the boomers themselves. And, sure enough, though he cleverly tries to put himself beyond The Baby Boom, Obama's 1961 birthdate puts him right there in the tail end. Either in terms of birthrates for mothers or of babies born, the boom, properly considered as a demographic phenomenon, covers the 20 years of births from 1946 through 1965.

Up to now, in political terms, the big shots have all been from the front end of the wave (or even slightly ahead of it)--that group that's just now hitting 60. That was the Shock Corps; we are the ones who trailed in their wake (often getting caught in the turbulence when we strayed). As for "Obara" (as Eleanor Clift said today; B.O.'s alter ego is, in fact, "KaBama' O'Barra", half-Irish, half-Southern black), as long as he can get us Shockers and Wavers to buy in, the Tail-Gunners can fire away at us. It's our own generational form of self-hate.