Articles: 'Mom, go upstairs. We're all liberals.'
Ouch. Monday night was the first time I heard my daughter apply that label to herself, and the word didn't please me. She and six friends/coworkers were about to watch the final Obama-Romney debate on the large-screen TV in our suburban basement.
These twenty-something kiddies were enjoying our hospitality because it was free.
The Preezy and his opponent appeared onscreen with the moderator in between, ready to debate foreign policy. The kids sat with laptops open like students at a lecture, in rapt attention, whereas I was in interactive mode, ready to fact-check and commentate, holding a bowl of snack food to throw at the screen should words fail.
Obama went straight into prevarication, claiming he had made the Mideast more stable by siding with the moderate elements of the Arab Spring.
"No, he didn't. He helped the Muslim Brotherhood take over Egypt."
"The Muslim Brotherhood are moderate," the trainee opined.
"No they're not. They're all about sharia law. It's barbaric."
Blank stares. They didn't seem to know what I was talking about.
"Mom, shhh."
I would not be shushed...
Obama took credit for taking out Osama.
"It was the Navy SEALs who did that."
Obama took credit for success in Afghanistan.
"Then why has the casualty rate been going up? And why, after we've been there over ten years, is Afghanistan still producing 90% of the world's heroin?"
Obama criticized Romney's budget.
"How can he do that? Obama hasn't had a budget in four years." I tried to keep my comments brief, talking about the coming "fiscal cliff."
"Mom, shhhh."
And so it went. No one argued back; they just stared at me blankly or shook their heads dismissively...
Despite their attitude, they kept on half-listening to the debate (the other half focused on their laptops, possibly "working").
At one point, reacting to a Romney statement, one of them said, "There's our meme!" At that, two of them started typing furiously, I suppose defaming the former governor on Twitter. Apparently, finding Romney stuff to make fun of was their reason for tuning in.
This morning, the kids packed up the minivan and drove away. On the way out, three of them thanked me for our hospitality. The other four, including the anti-Romney tweeters, said nothing.
I took out their trash, and now I'm laundering the sheets and towels they used.
Is all of this not indicative of the relationship between the youthful left and the rest of us?
Read more:
Articles: 'Mom, go upstairs. We're all liberals.'
eace
