The NY Times said essentially what I said about how this election defined a generation, only they, of course, said it earlier and better:
These young voters and those slightly older, who together may forever be known as Generation O, were the ground troops of the campaign. They opened hundreds of Obama offices in remote areas, registered voters and persuaded older relatives to take a chance on the man with the middle name Hussein.
They saw in Mr. Obama, 47, who was born at the tail end of the baby boom era, the values that sociologists and cultural critics ascribe to them.
Government under Mr. Obama, they believe, would value personal disclosure and transparency in the mode of social-networking sites. Teamwork would be in fashion, along with a strict meritocracy.
The article focuses on the how (i.e., social networking and attitudes about transparency and technology) more so than the why. There’s no mention of Bush, and although I think Obama appealed to younger voters on a certain non-political level, the last eight years have defined Generation O’s political outlook and perhaps shifted them much farther to the left than they would have been otherwise.