Is Barack Obama The Quintessential Barack Oboomer?

Tom Watson takes a detailed, stand-back-and-analyze look at Barack Obama and where he is in generational and politically symbolic terms. Here’s a tiny taste of it 4 U:

In the movies, the best leading men have always been able to portray younger characters – John Wayne played iconic gunslingers into his 50s, Cary Grant was the suave romantic lead into his early 60s, and Harrison Ford will reprise Indiana Jones this spring at a spry 65. Actors like Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and Nicolas Cage can easily take on parts playing men a decade or more junior to their biological ages.

The more I watch the extraordinary cultural phenomenon that is Barack Obama, the more I realize that the Senator from Illinois – the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination – is a political actor skillfully portraying a much younger character, and to rave reviews at that.

Obama will turn 47 years old before the delegates to the Democratic convention are seated in August. Yet he is leading what has been described as a generational movement of younger voters, the so-called millennials who were born in the 80s and came of age in the years after September 11, 2001. He is cast by the media as being part of that movement, a much younger voice in American politics than that of Hillary Clinton – who like a lot of leading female actors, must play her biological age pretty much straight up.

But Obama is either a Baby Boomer, according to some generational studies, or he’s a Generation Xer, according to others. It’s a generational tagging quandary I know pretty well, being less than a year younger than Obama.

Further down:

Barack Obama is often compared to John F. Kennedy, the youngest elected president, who presided over the passing of the torch to “a new generation of Americans.” But there’s a massive disconnect in this comparison. Kennedy was actually part of the generation he was seeking to lead, a young World War II veteran seeking to remake the national polity to serve the energies of his generational peers. Indeed, his Republican opponent in 1960, Richard Nixon, was also a member of that generation. When JFK spoke about service to his country from a generation of young Americans, he was speaking as a proud member of that generation.

In contrast, Obama has a good two decades on the very generation he has become an icon for. In movie star terms, he’s Sean Connery leading the squad of younger G-men in The Untouchables.

It’s a fascinating article and a MUST-READ. So read it in its ENTIRETY, from beginning to end.