WASHINGTON -- Former President Bill Clinton has been celebrating
his 60th birthday at breakneck speed and he will be continuing to
do so for months to come, according to news reports. Given the many
laughs he has afforded me over the years, I hope he will proceed at
a more restrained pace. I could not bear to see him make another
run to the emergency room. The sudden whitening of his hair since
his retirement from the White House and shrinkage of his once
fleshy physique should admonish voluptuaries everywhere of the
potential health threats from recreational sex.
On August 19, the blessed day of his birth, he observed it with
family and friends at Martha's Vineyard, the proletarian purlieu
where he and his wife have vacationed for over a decade, even when
they were not on speaking terms. The next day he observed the
historic event on Nantucket at Smith Bagley's vacation home,
Inverness, where the Clintons have freeloaded for seven years.
Carly Simon sang "Happy Birthday" to him. Now he is taking his
birthday on the road. Early in September he will be celebrating his
August 19 nativity in Toronto. On October 29 he will be in New
York, and the Rolling Stones will be there to sing "Happy Birthday"
along with other Clinton favorites. Our 42nd president will be
combining the celebration of himself with fundraising. This is an
innovation in narcissism, but then Clinton and like-minded members
of his 1960s generation have been innovative narcissists for
decades.
Not surprisingly they are not entering their 60s in a happy
frame of mind. "I hate it," Clinton said regarding his 60th
birthday. "For most of my working life, I was the youngest person
doing whatever I was doing...in the room." Well, maybe he was the
youngest of the men in the room. The public record suggests that
the women in the room were often much younger. Actually Clinton's
unhappiness at turning 60 is not typical of his age group. A recent
poll of Americans turning 60 by the AARP showed that 77 percent
were quite "satisfied" to be where they were in life.
That finding supports an argument I have been making about the
1960s generation for years, to wit, the majority were not New Age
narcissists of the Clinton variety. Many were simply the next
generation of conventional Americans, down to earth and sensible.
Typical of them is another famous politician who just turned 60,
President George W. Bush. "I really do feel young," the President
enthused to People magazine, and of course owing to his
healthy life of exercise and moderation he is.
One of the most historic events taking place in the first decade
of the 21st century is that the members of the 1960s generation are
squaring off for one more political battle to claim the identity of
the most momentous political generation of the 20th
century. The left-wing of that generation became famous early with
its members' protests against bourgeois America and their
celebration of liberated youth. The right-wing of that generation
made its mark later in the Reagan Revolution and now in the Bush
Administration, which is headed by a 1960s generation politician
who is precisely the opposite of his left-wing rivals, the
Clintons, Jean-Francois Kerry, Howard Dean, Al Gore, et al.
At Clinton's birthday celebration in New York on October 29 I
wonder if Catherine C. Mayo will put in an appearance. She might
well be the Cindy Sheehan of the moment. At her recent court
appearance in Boston she proudly wore a Rolling Stones T-shirt, and
she is definitely on the Clintons' side in the present 1960s
intergenerational rivalry. Mayo, 59, is the lady whose disruptive
behavior on a transatlantic flight to Washington, D.C. caused the
plane to land in Boston. She opposes the Bush Administration. On
the airplane she spoke mysteriously of some sort of relationship
with Al Qaeda and at one point lowered her pants and urinated in
the aisle -- a peace demonstration that I think all will agree
clearly got out of hand. In 2003, while writing for a Pakistani
newspaper, the Daily Times of Pakistan, Mayo declared, "I
am an American child of the 1960s. We defied the standards of our
parents and declared that a war was unjust. All conflicts can be
settled by peaceful means." Two days later the United States
invaded Iraq. Now she is really mad.
Yet she is only 59. When she turns 60 she may become even more
morose than her cogenerationist, Bill. She and Bill are the
minority within the 1960s generation; but they are, as they admit,
a unique minority. Watch for some truly bizarre antics from them
all as they trudge off to oblivion, and forget not the 2008
election. This intergenerational battle is going to get fierce.
topics:
Bill Clinton, Iraq, Pakistan
