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Begala's Baby-Boomer Blues

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Hagel-ian Logic: Bush's Ideal V.P.

3.31.00
Back Stabbin' Games People Play

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Diallo II?

he April Esquire has an intriguing article, "The Worst Generation," where the author offers this scathing assessment: "The Baby Boomers are the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation in American history. I hate the Boomers." Like many, I am an avowed boomer-hater. Seriously, who could disagree with that statement?

Oh, wait — there's a catch. The author is Paul Begala, co-architect of the ascendancy of the Boomer-in-Chief himself Bill Clinton!

Begala's timing is perfect. Beginning this column a short week ago, I said that "generational outlook" would be one of the recurring topics. It's an odd phrase and a few of you may have wondered what the heck your humble writer was talking about.

Simply, understanding the current "ruling class" is key to getting a handle on the politics of the day. That means figuring out the urges and predilections of the baby-boom generation. This "Thot" and an upcoming one will discuss even more the impact of boomers on the political landscape.

Begala's essay actually begins doing that fairly well. He recognizes Boomers as the group that produced upheavals in the '60s so intense that society is still trying to dig itself out. While the group produced some great music (though Begala gives more credit to pre-Boomer musicians such as the Beatles), they also created a selfish "go your own way" social ethos that rationalized draft dodging, free love and random drug use.

Begala adds some truly harsh criticism: "Without a war to threaten them, their selfishness came into full bloom. You know the results: Drug abuse, once a boutique curse of hip musicians, became more common than the clap. And speaking of sexually transmitted diseases, the Boomers began to fornicate with such abandon that rabbits were asking them to cool their jets. They didn't invent sex or drugs or rock 'n' roll, but they damned near ruined them all."

But reading Begala's essay, one has to scream, "He protests too much." He transfers Boomer values into an indictment of the Reagan administration: "Screw your neighbor, lay off the factory workers, shuffle a lot of paper, build an economy in which a few people get the gold mine and most people get the shaft." Of course, the commander-in-chief's defender-in-chief can't see his way to recognizing that society reaps the benefit of Reagan economic policies as much today as in the '80s.

Begala reveals himself as exactly the sort of self-serving boomer he hates, in his defense of Bill Clinton (as he has in earlier, similarly vain tasks). Begala delineates a difference between Clinton's boomerish personal behavior and his non-boomerish public actions (sound familiar?). Begala admits that Clinton has been incredibly selfish in private, but that his public record of "preferring the future to the present" distinguishes him from those of his generation. His example? The '93 tax plan: "Clinton took a terrible political hit for raising taxes to pay down the deficit. His party lost the House and the Senate…he was willing to pay the short-term price, we enjoy the long-term economic benefits."

Oh please.

Let's ignore for a moment that there would never have been the elimination of a deficit or a soaring stock market without a Republican Congress. What is stunning is that this is the only example to which Begala can point to demonstrate Clinton's willingness to sacrifice for future-looking policies. Paul, what about Social Security? Paul, what about Medicare, which you helped demagogue in 1995 when Republicans had a reasonable reform package on the table? What about Medicare again in 1998 when Clinton blew off his own fellow Democrat John Breaux's bipartisan initiative? What about ripping the heart out of the defense budget and then overextending American troops all around the world? What about the failure to use Clinton's standing in the minority community to really get rid of quotas and set-asides? In every case, where Bill Clinton could have taken a bold action toward the future, he took the path of least resistance and greatest political gain.

And Paul Begala sat by and cheered wildly on the sidelines.

He could do no less. Otherwise he would have had to admit a basic truth: There is no difference between the private Bill Clinton and the public Bill Clinton. And Paul Begala has been aggressively complicit in unleashing the one individual who incorporates all that is repugnant in this "worst generation."

Not surprisingly, Begala exonerates Clinton while finding George W. Bush the "truly classic boomer politician." Objective analysis of a generation always fails when partisan leanings kick in, which is why this faux screed against boomer values ultimately fails. Its author reveals himself as what he truly is.

He willingly blinds himself to his generation's greatest invention. How strange, because he has mastered it and it is on fine display in Esquire: spin. The boomers needed to perfect spin more than any previous cohort for a simple reason: After breaking all the rules that society had long accepted — and then realizing that those rules were there for a reason — what else can they do but twist, turn and quibble over the meaning of "is"? They spin because they realize they must hide. They must hide in order to justify their actions. To do anything else would be to admit that they are not as morally superior as they make themselves out to be.

From that sense of moral superiority comes the boomers' supreme legacy: The ultimate elevation of the personal into the political. This has created a level of sentimentality that infects all modern political debate. While Bill Clinton has mastered it, no boomer politician is immune to it.

Coming up: Conservatism and boomer values.

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