Wednesday, April 16, 2008

That Eighties Show   [Jonah Goldberg]

I don't think I really nailed it in today's column, but I really do think I am on to something about Obama. He's a creature of the 1980s in every way that the Clintons are products of the 1960s. But we're so used to hashing out the 1960s we don't hear the cultural resonances of the 1980s nearly as well. Obama politics were formed at Columbia University and Harvard Law in the 1980s, both of which are situated in the premier bastions of cosmopolitan liberalism and Reagan hatred. Pete Wehner's correct observation that Obama's vision of America is bleak and dismal is really a product of the 1980s urban and academic left which refused to believe that Reagan was doing anything good for the country, and constantly spun scenarios of a bleak and broken America where the Gordon Gekkos screw the little guys. He's not a black JFK or RFK. And he's not a black Reagan (those his own self-comparison to Reagan was telling). He's a black Mario Cuomo. Soaring rhetoric. Majestic sophistry. Conventional liberalism.

From a reader in response to my column:

Jonah,

This would explain a lot. We are constantly reminded that Obama has been
associated with Trinity UPC for 20 years. That would take us back to 1988
when yuppie rejection of "middle class values" was in vogue. In fact,
according to the biographical article in the New Republic, a black pastor in
Chicago tried to steer Obama away from Trinity, characterizing it as a
"buppie church."

New campaign slogan: chump change you can believe in.

Update: From a reader:

Jonah,

 

I don't disagree with the main thrust of today's article, but I do have one significant bone to pick.  I'm a 1985 graduate of Columbia College, and I can assure you that the Columbia University student body overwhelmingly supported Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election.  Towards election day, on any given night you could walk down 114th St. and hear rooftops chants of "four more years, four more years."  From my regular emails you probably know me as a fairly conservative guy, but I'm also a (sometimes) proud Columbia grad.  Let's not unnecessarily tar Columbia with same brush that we rightfully use to delineate Obama's various quirks and shortcomings. 

04/16 09:53 AMShare