EXTRA: Pre-Election Special: The Boomers’ Last Chance To Get It Right
By
Leonard Zwelling
We’ve had two chances.
Bill Clinton was a pretty successful representative of our best natures as Baby Boomers, but also our worst as Jonathan Mahler points out in today’s NY Times. In the end, he was self-indulgent, self-centered and selfish. He also played fast and loose with both the truth and the Rules of Golf. He loved mulligans (do-overs). That’s what the subsequent generations of Americans say about us Boomers as well.
George W. Bush was our second President. He turned out to be bellicose, foolish and clueless in public. Hmm…sounds like us again. What did all that protesting really get us? Certainly not racial equity although I guess we eventually got Vietnam stopped just in time for Watergate.
No matter who wins tomorrow, and hopefully this will end tomorrow and not be dragged into the eight-member Supreme Court a la 2000, a Baby Boomer will be in the White House, probably for the last time.
I can hear many of you younger folks saying—Thank God! And who could blame you? We have really made a mess of it, haven’t we? From Monica to Iraq, we certainly could have done a better job of comporting ourselves when one of us ascended to the Oval Office. But, alas, we did not. Note I am using WE here because we 75 million have been lumped together for so long, we may as well take the hit as a generation.
I still maintain our greatest contribution to America was musical. From our earliest rock inklings of Elvis on the Sullivan show to the Beatles, The Stones and beyond, we did teach the country how to rock. But not how to govern.
Now we will either get the son of Bill in the guise of his wife or the son of Tricky Dick in the guise of The Donald. This does not bode well for our legacy.
I just thought I would note that we Boomers are getting our last shot starting January 20, 2017. Maybe the third time will be the charm.
