Whatever the demographers say, to be a Boomer you had to come of age during the Sixties. If you grew up in the Seventies — like Barack Obama, like Sarah Palin, like me — you’re not a Boomer. You’re not really Gen X, either — that’s Eighties. We weren’t born with Sesame Street, we didn’t go to high school with MTV. Video games? Pong.

We don’t have a label. We’ve rarely been pandered to — Dazed and Confused, Wayne’s World, that’s about it. (Rocking out to Queen in a Pacer? That’s ours, baby.) We’re in the shadows of two mountains.

Let me tell you a few things about the Seventies. It was the decade when retro first hit the market, when America started looking back instead of forward. American Graffiti. Happy Days. Grease. Animal House. We didn’t have our own moment. We had a rerun of the Fifties.

And at the end of the decade, we embraced Ronald Reagan.

Not all of us, heavens no. But enough to make it noticeable. Some of the smart kids were tired of the Democrats, tired of Jimmy, tired of Teddy, who wasn’t yet the Lion of the Senate but the idiot brother who drowned a chick and supported what we called fascist legislation. No, he wouldn’t do.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. (Even our protest lines were borrowed from the Fifties.) My co-editor of the student newspaper’s annual satire supplement — who loved the Who, who as a copy editor suggested “All We Are Saying” as the perfect headline for a John Lennon candlelight vigil — would a few years later start a campus neocon tabloid.

I followed Carlin. He followed P.J. O’Rourke.

This fall, we’re taking over the country. The torch has been passed to a new generation, and this time it’s personal. It’s the Barry & Sarah Show, hosted by Jon Stewart, fortysomethings all. Joe and John will have walk-on parts, but they’re both irrelevant to the story. It’s our world now, and you kids will just have to deal with it. You’ll get your turn soon enough. If anything’s left.

Here’s how you launder a story: A supermarket tabloid is not a respectable news source (until, um, it is), but if you can get a respectable news source to comment on it, you’ve put it in play. Bonus points if the respectable news source brings it to your attention first.

So we’ve got Geezer flack Steve Schmidt emailing reporters: “The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Governor Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false.”

What allegations? What cover? What affair? Wait, what?

We of course refuse to stoop so low as to spread unfounded rumors. So here’s the cover to put the flack’s statement in context, and here’s a link to respectable Howard Kurtz dishing the details explaining the background. We thank you for helping us preserve our journalistic virtue.

McCain Aide Rips Tabloid Report [WaPo]

Counterclockwise from left: Non-pregnant daughter, caribou, blood, Sarah Palin. Enjoy your breakfast!

A Hunting Trophy [LAT, via SanFranLefty]

See more shocking teen pregnancies! Is her high school sweetheart ready for fatherhood? Did David Duchovny pick the right moment to duck into a pestorking addiction clinic?

Sums up “Democratic strategist” George Lakoff, “It’s conceivable a 17-year-old girl just screwed the GOP.”

Sarah Palin: Political Opponent Recalls Being Ridiculed [Us Weekly]

And to honor him, one of our favorite videos ever.

Don LaFontaine, voice of movie trailers, dies [AP]

This is why you don’t want to plan too far ahead: We were all set to run with Mary Tyler Moore gags this week.

Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process [NYT]

“Aug. 24: Oh Emm Gee – I’m going to be a dad. Holy shizzles, Bristol’s pregnant! I don’t think her mom knows yet.”

What? You thought? No, no, no.

Levi Johnston is a web developer from Phoenix who’s enjoying his inadvertent notoriety. If you have any website or database problems, you can email him at knocked.up@levijohnston.com. And near as we can tell, he’s owned the domain since 2003.

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