Andrew Sullivan has posted a letter from a reader which lifts the spirits of those who are dismayed by the depths to which the campaign has been dragged. The whole screed is worth looking at. The writer says the younger generation who "came of age anywhere from the second Clinton term (Lewinsky) through the disaster of the Bush years" were so horrified by the "viscerally disgusting political game" of the old politics that they weren't about to get involved. And then along came Obama. Here's an excerpt:
The mistake is reading this as an Obama personality cult, in which case "grow up" would be appropriate. But the Obamaniacs I meet are nothing like that... They don't sing his praises, they sing their own. They are intoxicated by the idea of a politics where things they thought were not possible become possible, and people talk to each other like adults. They don't think he's going to fix things, they think they are.
What the old farts might want to consider is that these young people who have no particular vested interest in the current system might be seeing the rot much more clearly than the fogeys who have been entangled in it for decades. And the mature folk might want to accept that the burden of proof is on them to show why such a viscerally disgusting political game is worth playing.
Opting out of that is not immaturity, it's intelligence.
Given the phrasing and some old fashioned usages, it's likely this letter wasn't written by a kid. It was written by someone who speaks to those of us who know we can do a lot better than, well, you know ...
I'm a a 23 year old and technically gen-y yet I have no doubt I could have easily written a piece of that quality even a couple years ago. Why assume it was written by someone older just because you think it beyond the capabilities of "a kid"?
Posted by: DM | May 01, 2008 at 10:38 PM
I didn't mean it quite the way you took it, DM. It wasn't the "quality" but the style. "Fogey," for example, is a spelling which is more likely to come from a Brit or an older American, "fogy" being the preferred spelling here and now.
Posted by: PW | May 02, 2008 at 07:27 AM
The letter writer is 37. :)
Posted by: nolaboyd | May 02, 2008 at 09:11 AM
Andrew Sullivan is a viscious woman-hating toad. When John Edwards dropped out of the race, I had a hard time making up my mind between Clinton and Obama, both had appealing qualities. Then all the news sources I had been scanning started running negative Clinton pieces accompanied by unflattering photos of her. That caught my attention, and I began to take a closer look. That's when I really became a Hillary supporter and started sending her money. I'm now to the point that if Obama gets the nomination, I could pretty much care less if he wins or not. Supreme court make-up is the only thing that concerns me.
Posted by: BettyB | May 02, 2008 at 11:02 AM
Sullivan is gay, but nothing makes me think he's a woman-hater. I began to think his analysis of Obama was right on target when I read his pieces on Obama's proposed foreign policies.
Aside from your feeling that the media were unfair to her, what specifically made you choose Clinton, Betty?
37 sounds right,nola. About halfway between "old fart" and "these young people"!
Posted by: PW | May 03, 2008 at 05:35 PM
I said the letter writer was 37 because I wrote it. The 'e' in fogey comes from being raise in Canada, I think.
BettyB, that's really incoherent. If Supremes are all that matter, then there's no difference btw Hill and Obama...and a ton of difference btw him and McCain.
Posted by: nolaboyd | May 06, 2008 at 10:45 AM
It's a great letter, nola.
Posted by: PW | May 06, 2008 at 11:30 AM