Regular listeners to my radio shows know that one of my pet peeves is the apparent pride exhibited by the wet-behind-the-ears and the recently WBTE in their cluelessness about anything that happened before they born; as in, “Oh, I’ve never heard of that. I wasn’t born.” Regular listeners also know my standard reply to such radiant ignorance: “I wasn’t born in 1863, but I’ve heard of Gettysburg.” (“Gettysburg?” For you youngsters, or ignorant U.S. Americans of any age, you can google it.)

So today I see this story, explaining that 17 year-olds know almost nothing about history. Only 43% could identify the fifty-year period in which the Civil War occurred. In other words, young people are clueless about American history. Young people are also ga-ga over Barack Hussein Obama. He is their overwhelming choice by far, which given that news about history, makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

On the day of the New Hampshire primary, I attended a corporate meeting (don’t ask) led by a 20-something “facilitator,” who in typical facilitator fashion, started things off by suggesting that we each stand, introduce ourselves and tell the assembled group something interesting about ourselves. He went first. The interesting thing he told us about himself is that he is a “huge supporter of Barack Obama,” and so was pulling for him in the primary that day. I smiled when he said that because it reminded me of something that always makes wives smile, which is dumb things their husbands do, and that we can use to keep them humble. No, I don’t mean not putting away the butter, or not being able to make the bed any better than a 5 year-old like Barack Obama, or even being stinky like him, all things we learned from his loud-mouthed wife, Michelle Obama, over the course of the last year. No, I mean the fact that the Husband–and he actually admits this fact–voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976. Of course he did! He was barely old enough to vote at the time, and being young, he was very susceptible to Jimmuh’s silly rhetoric about hope and change and ending business as usual in Washington–is any of this BS sounding familiar? It is to those over 40, but to the youngsters, not so much, which goes a long way to explain a lot. I’ve seen that movie before–the Carter administration, that is–but if I hadn’t I would probably be just as naive and foolish as the young Obama supporters today. As for the supposedly mature adults supporting him, it’s tough for those of us for whom the cult of the personality has never had great appeal to understand it, but it is what it is.
Time to watch the big dem debate. More to come.

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