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Eminentoes
Obama’s Alter Boy
Warning: this is what it looks like when Baby Boomers get old.
I think Garry Trudeau should retire and ride off into the sunset, because there’s nothing for him to make fun of anymore. The self-involved prep school Baby Boomers who compose his cultural milieu are past the point of ridicule now. Sure, they were funny during the Clinton '90s, when they were in their forties and unbuttoning their shirts a button too low. But now they’re just old and sad, drifting off into a suburbia still protected by their “right way of thinking,” and increasingly irrelevant.
Jonathan Alter was Andover class of ‘75, and these days his Bloomberg View column is demonstrating what exactly that means in 2011. It features all the Boomer hallmarks — the blind faith in higher education, the perpetual student-ism, the nodding support of those from alternative backgrounds — but with a new kind of lazy contentment. Alter’s Sep. 22 column “Worried About America?: Visit a Boys & Girls Club” didn’t even have a joke title. He was sincerely telling us to go visit a boys and girls club. Because he recently did. And he found some very special things inside:
This week, I served as one of five judges in the Boys & Girls Clubs of America National Youth of the Year competition. This is like the Miss America pageant, except that instead of judging contestants by how they look in a ball gown, we were assessing things like “Moral Character,” “Public Speaking” and “Obstacles Overcome.”
Talk about a man-bites-dog story: The adults in the room — from a senior White House official to an executive with Major League Baseball — stood in awe of 17- and 18-year-olds.
Hey that’s great, Dad. So the Jetta is in the driveway?
Jonathan Alter is proud of all the good work he’s done. Like launching his hagiographic Obama book The Promise in time for the 2010 midterms. And anointing buddy Rahm Emanuel Newsweek’s “King of Chicago” (Gery Chico who?) during his mayoral campaign. And, as recently as August 26, declaring “You Think Obama’s Been A Bad President?: Prove It.” See, the burden of proof is on us. Once a feisty MTV political consultant getting out the Clinton youth vote in ‘92, Alter is now filled with empty-nester self-satisfaction.
Is that why Tina Brown put him out to pasture? In April, Alter became the last of the much-whispered about “Newsweek Six” to get his Christmas bonus early — following Howard Fineman, Michael Isikoff, Fareed Zakaria, Jon Meacham, and Evan Thomas. Line them all up, and it’d look less like The Usual Suspects and more like The Big Chill. Fineman quickly became senior politics editor at the Huffington Post. Isikoff (who, during Monica, famously couldn’t get off a shot while Drudge hit the game-winning three) went to NBC News. Zakaria went to Time, Meacham to Random House publishing and Thomas to the journalism department at Princeton.
Noting “changes afoot,” and slyly referring to his “defunct” Newsweek email addresses, Alter left the Newsweek building after filing his final bit of optimism, “Arne Duncan’s mission to fix America’s schools has a shot at success,” on April 3. Out went the Walden College grads and in came flamboyant post-Boomer Andrew Sullivan and “crazy-eyed” newsstand gimmicks.
For a while, it was fun to watch Alter grovel, as he did in his early days as Friday columnist at Michael Bloomberg’s new opinion publication. All of a sudden the true-blue liberal found himself condemning Mayor Bloomberg opponent Diane Ravitch as being some kind of teachers’ union stooge (Salon accused him of “directly attacking prominent critics of the boss”). For one shining moment, it seemed like American journalism was changing, and aging access reporters like Alter — pushed out by ambitious Washington and New York-melding media liberals like Jonathan Chait — would now have to become center-right hitmen in order to survive.
Not to be. Instead, Alter at Bloomberg has fashioned himself one of the most consistently tame liberal soapboxes in the business. Since Bloomberg View is less than a year old and statedly “ideology free” (at least in unifying theme), it allows its big names to set their own tone. For Alter, it represents his membership to a self-satisfied new club. He joins Dan Rather (HDNet) and Keith Olbermann (Current TV), as well as Keith’s nutty professor boss Al Gore (he of the 24-hour telethons) in the world of the left-wing New Media: where the sugar daddies are big-time, so feel free to drone on, and on, and on.
Alter each week dwells in a '60s-kid playpen, advising Obama to “channel LBJ” in passing the Jobs Act, needlessly rehashing the Clinton-Gingrich fights to score petty little points for Bill, and ascribing to the Bush years the title “America’s Lost Decade.” At this point, no cartoonist could even do justice to Jonathan Alter.
For all of Tina Brown’s liberal hysterics, at least one thing can be said for her Newsweek takeover: when she came in, one member of the campus protester generation marched on out. Whether Tina Brown actually facilitated that shift, we can only speculate. But I can’t imagine she misses Alter too much. The quality of his recent work more than confirms that.
But who knows, maybe he still has a few decent starry-eyed puff pieces left in him. Or maybe he’ll write a John Irving-style novel?
Letter to the Editor View all comments (24) | Leave a comment
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Kitty| 9.28.11 @ 6:16AM
Nothing says fading boomers like this picture of seniors celebrating their Woodstock memories: http://www.the-leader.com/feat.....ck?photo=0
Sid Vicious| 9.29.11 @ 10:19PM
Ouch! That's gonna leave a permanent mark...
Herb| 9.28.11 @ 6:53AM
Well......as Glenn Beck says, wait just a second...were those seniors actually at Woodstock in 1969 or is this just a theme party?
My age is certainly showing since I graduated college five years before Alter, whose Germanic name increasingly connotes advancing age. But I have yet to assume the grim and taciturn air that Alter displays in TV interviews, as he waits for the sealed train that never comes to take him to Finland Station so the revolution can truly begin.
Does embrace of conservatism early in life confer its own reward in middle age, acceptance of the immutability of human nature and sure knowledge that others have striven along the same path? A certain cheerfulness seems to be the result.
However, when youthful liberalism is followed not by maturity of one's views but by resentment that they have not become the prevailing ones, then unsmiling reality etches itself on one's very features.
For example, George (rhymes with Lakoff). Like Alter, his public rumblings are filled with a seething anger that cannot be translated into direct action. Almost muslimlike in its repressed fury.
So Alter left Newsweek before Tina Brown could fire him? Good, for as Hemingway put it, a defeated army in retreat starts executing its officers. Let the disintegration continue.
Paul McGrath| 9.28.11 @ 11:56AM
"when youthful liberalism is followed not by maturity of one's views but by resentment that they have not become the prevailing ones, then unsmiling reality etches itself on one's very features."
Wow. Best comment I've read in a week. Going into the quotation book.
Herb| 9.28.11 @ 12:45PM
Thanks! But I sure wish I had thought of "college bong-a-thon" as seen below. Priceless!
And going to a leftie rally to "pick up easy chicks"? Back in 1973 someone summed up the Sixties protests in one sentence: "You know, a lot of guys joined the revolution just to get (bleeped)."
David Horowitz has written several books about aging lefties who never seem to grow up. He saw it all firsthand. Excellent, entertaining reading.
axbucxdu| 10.1.11 @ 11:54PM
Herb| 9.28.11 @ 6:53AM wrote: "...Does embrace of conservatism early in life confer its own reward in middle age, acceptance of the immutability of human nature and sure knowledge that others have striven along the same path? A certain cheerfulness seems to be the result."
I call it bemusement. I acquired this same attitude from reading what at the time (80's) amounted to the Anglo counterpart to TAS, The (London) Spectator. Hands down, the best rag around.
Deborah D | 9.28.11 @ 8:21AM
I believe your sub-headline should read: "Warning: This is what it looks like when LIBERAL Baby Boomers get old" -- there, fixed it for you.
Appleby| 9.30.11 @ 3:35PM
Just what I was about to say. The one thing Obama is going to accomplish, although he never set out to do so, is to finally slam the door on the Sixties. Now everybody knows what we hard-working middle-class Boomers knew back in 1968: That Sixties Woodstock Hippie Dippie Dog Won't Hunt.
Many of us Boomers are doing just fine, save for the oncoming health problems that even you smug, sneering Tweetheads will suffer one day (and by the way, did you know that when we move to the retirement village, town, skyscraper or hotel, there won't be a basement for you?)
As for whoever it is that coined the stupid, patronizing and downright nasty term "Zoomer", God knows who you are and He will get you.
Count on it.
Sam Vaughn| 9.28.11 @ 8:48AM
Pat, good job. I've often thought that our liberal "leaders" in DC took their college bong-a-thons, pranks and social protests on an extended journey to DC and old age. I once asked a friend of mine why he as going to a "protest" he said it was a great place to pick up easy chicks. And so goes the seriousness of liberal baby boomers.
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.28.11 @ 9:27AM
Here's what I took away from this story.
The Grandson of the Founder of the COMMUNIST PARTY in America (CPUSA) was sitting in judgement of how our Children should be, in a BOYS and GIRLS CLUB.
Apparently, 6 hours a day of LEFT WING INDOCTRINATION, in School, is not enough.
Petronius| 9.28.11 @ 9:40AM
AAaaahh. The circle is now closed. Shall the ghost of Walt Kelly appear once more above the fold? Yea, there stands Grundoon, aged and wrinkled, his diaper sagging with a puzzled blank look at the calendar on the wall to utter his perennial announcement, "glrurnx!"
Anthony| 9.28.11 @ 9:51AM
How great is this, Alter, aka Constanza, is part of the Newsweek Six. Does this mean TAS can buy his contract for a $1.00, the same price Newsweek went for???
What pathetic fools these lefty "children of Woodstock Nation " have become. They despised their hopelessly docile and polite bourgeois parents in the '60s for their alleged intolerence.
Ah, but now look and see who the real jackbooted totalitarians are? Baldy Alter, Isikoff, of the flushed Koran fake story, that resulted in the death of several people, and the pompus Fineman, now working at the Huffington Post, all stand with the leftist establishment that tolerates no dissent.
Look in the mirror, you former bellbottomed followers of the Peace & Love generation, how does it feel knowing what sclerotic Nazi frauds you all have become???
Tom| 9.28.11 @ 12:48PM
I don't much care for Alter or any of his ilk, but this piece goes beyond opinion to ad hominem attack. What happened? Did he spill a drink on you at a cocktail party? Steal your little red wagon?
RCV| 9.28.11 @ 5:44PM
Agree. Why TAS runs these little personal grudge pieces is beyond me. Howley ought to grow up and try writing some real political commentary.
Marc Jeric| 9.28.11 @ 2:02PM
Komrad Alter is an old-type of a dedicated communist, still sore at the passing of the USSR (thanks, RR!).
Ed| 9.28.11 @ 5:38PM
Agreein with "Tom" above. Whatever Alter's faults [and Defining Moment did have socially redeeming content], Patrick Howley uses his valuable platform for pointless ad hominem vitriol. Exactly the kind of cable garbage -- from both left & right -- that is dragging down our country when we need fresh & viable ideas.
Come on, Howley: Start using your platform for something valuable!
jomo2009| 9.29.11 @ 1:23AM
Schultzie, is that you?
The Bruce| 9.28.11 @ 11:21PM
As a Catholic, I object to the use of the term "alter boy" in this article in reference to those who aren't really alter boys.
Margie, go ahead and wash your non-Christ-like hate on me if you must.
Neo| 10.5.11 @ 1:42PM
Those are "altar boys"
jacky | 9.29.11 @ 2:44AM
Here's what I took away from this story.
Jabber3| 9.29.11 @ 9:53AM
Yes it was past time for all these "nerd birds" to fly away into oblivion. They will not be missed by me.
Typical White Person| 9.29.11 @ 4:52PM
Good piece. I never did understand Doonesbury, and furthermore, who, outside of their dentists' waiting room, actually reads Time and Newsweek anymore?
Neo| 10.5.11 @ 1:43PM
My dentist has "Field and Stream" and a bunch of gun magazines
supra | 10.18.11 @ 1:44AM
I really loved reading your blog. It was very well authored and easy to understand. I also found your posts very interesting. In fact after reading, I had to go show it to my friend and he enjoyed it as well!