Did Someboday Say . . .

I don't particularly care who gets appointed to be the next senator from New York state,* but it does seem to me that a good portion of the discourse surrounding the possible appointment of one Caroline Kennedy to this seat involves something that I do spend quite a bit of time thinking about, namely the mythology of the baby boomer generation. Exhibit A is Ruth Marcus's Washington Post article. Marcus has gotten beat up all over the internet for her musings on Caroline Kennedy as a senator. Again, I don't really care who gets appointed. But here are a few of the paragraphs that seem to have drawn some reaction, and that also seem to be dealing with boomer nostalgia:

What really draws me to the notion of Caroline as senator, though, is the modern-fairy-tale quality of it all. Like many women my age -- I'm a few months younger than she -- Caroline has always been part of my consciousness: The lucky little girl with a pony and an impossibly handsome father. The stoic little girl holding her mother's hand at her father's funeral. The sheltered girl, whisked away from a still-grieving country by a mother trying to shield her from prying eyes.

In this fairy tale, Caroline is our tragic national princess. She is not locked away in a tower but chooses, for the most part, to closet herself there. Her mother dies, too young. Her impossibly handsome brother crashes his plane, killing himself, his wife and his sister-in-law. She is the last survivor of her immediate family; she reveals herself only in the measured doses of a person who has always been, will always be, in the public eye.

Then, deciding that Obama is the first candidate with the inspirational appeal of her father, she chooses to abandon her previous, above-it-all detachment from the hurly-burly of politics.

I know it's an emotional -- dare I say "girly"? -- reaction. But what a fitting coda to this modern fairy tale to have the little princess grow up to be a senator.

The baby boomer generation likes stories--"fairy tales," in Marcus's words. Hey man, don't we all? The only difference is that the baby boomer generation, far more than other groups in the U.S. now, seems to have the power to turn theirs into reality. I think that's what Marcus is saying would happen if Governor Paterson** appointed Caroline Kennedy to this senate seat. And I certainly think that's a big part of what's happening in the tribute band scene.

*OK, that's a lie, I do care. I'm holding out hope that it will be someone cool like, I don't know, David Bowie (probably not a U.S. citizen, though he does live in Tribeca, doesn't he?) or Bernie Williams. And I realize that those choices are as irrational as Marcus's critics would say her choice of Caroline Kennedy is. But come one. Bowie and Bernie are WAY cooler than Caroline Kennedy. This isn't even a contest.

**Shout out to Governor Paterson, by the way. He's awesome! I hope he has a future in government. He's already the coolest black, blind governor New York state has ever had.