Hillary Clinton and I were both 21 in 1968. I was in the SDS. Hillary was not. Obama was 7 years old.
The year began with sales of the Beatles album, “Magical Mystery Tour.” In retrospect, it was a premonition. In late January, North Korea captured the USS Pueblo and crew members. A week later, the North Vietnamese army launched the Tet offensive. On Feb. 27, Walter Cronkite announced on CBS News that the U.S. had to negotiate a settlement to the Vietnam War. On March 12, Sen. Gene McCarthy defeated incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, aided by antiwar students that Sen. McCarthy called his “children’s crusade.” Two weeks later, LBJ announced on TV that he would not run for re-election. One week later, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It was only April 4.
There were race riots everywhere. On April 24, students occupied five buildings at Columbia University, protesting the war. In May bloody student riots erupted in France, likely witnessed by the impressionable Mr. Sarkozy.
On July 3, Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol in a New York City loft. The next day, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In August, the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia. Seven days later, antiwar demonstrators at the Democratic convention fought pitched battles with the Chicago police.
On Nov. 4, having absorbed all this, the people of the United States voted. They gave 43.4% of their vote to Richard Nixon and 42.7% to Hubert Humphrey. Alabama Gov. George Wallace got 13.5%. Four years later, George Wallace was shot and wounded while running for president. 1968 lasted a long time.
Indeed, 1968 has lasted a long time. A lifetime. And maybe too long.
Obama is now telling Hillary and I that the 60′s is over. That our generation is so ossified in its politics, that forward movement is impossible unless the grip is broken. How can this be we wonder? It feels like we just got here and now the 7 year olds are telling us to move on.
As Henninger says, 1968 may still have to act itself out one more time. But that will be Hillary’s mission and not mine. We’re breaking up she and I. In fact, I’ll admit we’ve been separated for a long time now. The old times still weigh heavy with meaning. But there was another lesson in 1968 that still has not been learned: maybe it’s better to gracefully step back when the fate of the nation requires, rather than forcing the nation to kick you out. Al Gore seems to have learned it and may be you too, Hillary, should take another look.
We still have many things to contribute in the years ahead. Silence, however, maybe the biggest value we can offer right now.
