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JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review August 24, 2006 / 30 Menachem-Av, 5766

Birthday boy Bubba

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | 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 Aug. 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 more than 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 Aug. 19 nativity in Toronto. On Oct. 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 co-generationist, 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.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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