Let's Do Lunch

Wouldn’t you just love to be in the White House today? Our four living presidents: Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George Bush, and President elect Barack Obama are meeting today for a luncheon at the White House. How fascinating will that be?

The dynamics between our past, current and future Presidents would be very interesting to watch. Obviously the father and son Bush’s get along, or you would suppose they would. A few years ago Bush 43 tapped Bill Clinton to work closely with Bush 41 and apparently they all became friends in spite of their political differences. And as the new kid on the block I assume that everyone wants to talk to Obama or give him advice and he should be listening to the experiences of his predecessors. So that leaves Jimmy Carter. Neither of the Bush’s have reason to like him nor could I see Carter and Clinton having much in common other than being the two past Democrat Presidents. Besides, Jimmy should be feeling a bit embarrassed again about that Nobel Peace Prize for the Middle East and his Habitat for Humanity houses falling apart.

I sure would like to be a fly on the wall to listen in to these men who are in the most exclusive club in the world; United States Presidents. Then again, instead of discussing current events they could simply be telling Obama about hidden rooms in the White House or comparing golf tips. (Isn’t it interesting that all last year the MSM touted Obama as being a basketball player, a very hip urban sport, but waited until after he was elected to mention that he was also an avid golfer, a country club sport associated with Republicans!)

Anyway, I wonder how many other countries could have all of their past living leaders meet with the upcoming leader without bloodshed? In spite of everything that is wrong with this country we still must be doing something right!

Electing Another Baby Boomer

No surprise that journalists are continuing to get something wrong but this error is really bugging me. After the election I keep hearing and reading how we have elected our first post Vietnam president; a man who isn’t a baby boomer. They have the first part right but the second part is wrong. Barack Obama is a baby boomer.

Baby boomers were the children of the Greatest Generation who were settling down, marrying and having children after World War II. To be specific, demographers have always defined boomers as those born from 1946 to 1964. Yes, this is a large group of births but most people don’t realize that the peak of births didn’t occur until 1957. In total, nearly 76 million babies were born during the baby boom and half were born from 1956 to 1964.

Although Barack is an exception, many of these second wave of baby boomers were the younger brothers and sisters of the older baby boomers. Although they are all boomers, the journalists were right in that these two groups had very different life experiences. The older boomers were teens or young adults during most of the Vietnam War and were at the forefront of all the movements of the 1960’s; civil rights, women rights, gay rights. While the younger boomers were, well, young.

I should know as I, too, was a baby boomer born during the second half of this demographic group. This topic, especially the major differences of the two groups has always fascinated me. For example, don’t ask my fellow younger boomers where they were when Kennedy was shot because they’ll be quick to tell you that they were still in diapers or just learning to read at the time. But do ask us where we were in 1981 when Reagan was shot or when the Challenger exploded, two events which greatly impacted us for we were teens or young adults at the time. As for the pivotal year of 1968, when so much seemed to happen in our country, the youngest boomers ranged in age from 4 to 11 years old. Personally my only memory of the assassination of Martin Luther King was being angry that my cartoons on TV had been canceled for the news coverage.

So Barack Obama is as much of a baby boomer as Bill Clinton or George Bush. I am sure this will frustrate anyone born after 1964 because the rest of the country is definitely tired of baby boomers. Yet as part of the second wave of boomers he does have a much different life experience than the older boomers. He, himself, has already alluded to this when he was defending his association with Bill Ayers by saying he was only 8 when Ayers was bombing buildings. He truly is a post Vietnam child who grew up in a world that was different from the past boomer presidents. Yet, let there be no mistake on this, Barack Obama is still a baby boomer.