Temper tantrums

The excellent Michael Barone tries to explain the unusual level of hatred directed first against Bill Clinton and now against George Bush. Barone thinks the baby boom is the key. I’m a sucker for baby boom explanations, and Barone makes a decent case for this one — “What we are seeing is a civil war between the two halves of the baby boom, the liberal half that basked in national publicity in the late 1960s and the conservative half that smoldered in resentment for many years until its more recent rise to prominence.” It is also true that those who first became interested and involved in politics at the time of the Vietnam war brought an unusual level of intensity and passion to the table. The same is true for those whose introduction came through the civil rights movement or feminism. I suppose it’s not surprising that, forty years on, the passion remains.
UPDATE: Thanks to the readers who pointed out the error, the link to Barone’s article has been fixed.

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