The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

The Long History of Janet Napolitano

It's heartening to hear that Janet Napolitano is most likely Obama's pick as secretary of Homeland Security. I profiled Napolitano for The American Prospect in July and spent some time with her in Phoenix. She's really smart, tough, and funny, dropping Monty Python lines in official meetings. A cabinet with both Napolitano and Hillary Clinton in it would be chock-full of female power.

A former prosecutor, Napolitano is vocally pro-choice, pro-death penalty, and a moderate on immigration, which serves her well in Arizona's libertarian political climate. She was the first governor to suggest the National Guard should be dispatched to the U.S.-Mexico border, and the Bush administration followed her lead and did exactly that.

But what many don't know about Napolitano—or don't remember—is that she first came onto the national stage in 1991 as an attorney representing Anita Hill during the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on Clarence Thomas. (Joe Biden chaired the committee at that time and is remembered for his ham-handedness in dealing with the sensitive topic of sexual harassment.) Napolitano was in charge of preparing the testimonies of Hill's supporting witnesses, and she credits her involvement in the case with deepening her commitment to electoral politics. "It really did bring home how issues of women really didn't have an avenue to be heard at that time," Napolitano told me during our May interview. "I think that from professor Hill's standpoint, that experience cost her a lot personally. But I think she should have a satisfaction in knowing, but for that experience, the fact that women need to be treated fairly and are entitled to go to work without being harassed—when they're in the workplace trying to earn a living—would never have gained the prominence it did and all the protections we now have."

When Bill Clinton appointed Napolitano U.S. Attorney for Arizona in 1993, Senate Republicans held up her nomination for more than a year, in large part because of lingering resentments over the Thomas-Hill case. So it'll be interesting to see if the issue resurfaces for Napolitano this time around—or if, 17 years later, the infamous episode has lost its power as a political and cultural touchstone.

Or, Maybe Obama Knows Exactly What He's Doing...

Can (and Should) Eliot Spitzer Be Rehabilitated?

With a very serious op-ed on financial regulation in last Sunday's Washington Post, Eliot Spitzer clearly sees the economic crisis as an opportunity to rehabilitate his reputation, trotting out some pretty powerful "I told you sos" from his New York state attorney general days. Spitzer says he rang the warning bell about subprime mortgages and accounting irregularities at AIG but was rebuffed by the Bush administration. Only in the last paragraph does he deal with the elephant—cough, prostitution-ring scandal—in the room:

Although mistakes I made in my private life now prevent me from participating in these issues as I have in the past, I very much hope and expect that President Obama and his new administration will have the strength and wisdom to do again what FDR did.

A few bloggers were so impressed by Spitzer's essay that they called on the Obama administration to offer him a job. "Do we have to exclude Spitzer from addressing the issues on which he has considerable expertise? Issues that have nothing to do with an unrelated sex scandal?" mused Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly. "Is there a better pick in mind for the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission?"

Anonymous Liberal agreed, writing: "The argument is simple. When you're really sick, you hire the best doctor you can. You don't care about his/her personal life." Politico's Ben Smith floated Spitzer's name as a replacement for Hillary Clinton in the Senate should she become secretary of state.

If you're raising your eyebrows, you're not the only one. The way I see it, the No Drama Obama team has enough trouble on their hands incorporating the Clintons into the fold. Do we really expect Obama to embrace a man who broke multiple laws by contracting a prostitute across state lines? And there's no indication that Ashley Dupre, the call girl in question, is planning on helpfully fading into the night. On Friday she will appear with Diane Sawyer on 20/20, and she has granted an interview to People magazine. Her words to Silda Wall Spitzer? "I'm sorry for your pain."

Even if you're willing to forgive Eliot Spitzer's slimeball behavior, there's the inconvenient truth that despite his Wall Street expertise and reputation as a corporate ball buster, Spitzer's governorship was rife with scandal and intrigue from day one. He used the state police to spy on his political opponents. He was so obnoxious to the state Legislature that even his allies feared his liberal policy agenda would erupt in flames. A good fit for Obama? No way. Eliot Spitzer: Not the change we need.

Eric Holder for Attorney General?

And now on to a different Obama Cabinet post: At Newsweek, Michael Issikoff is reporting that Eric Holder will be tapped as Obama's attorney general, assuming he vets well. What I like about this choice is that it's bold but not crazy bold. The strike against Holder is that he signed off on Bill Clinton's pardon of Mark Rich, a crackup wherever you are on the ideological spectrum. On the other hand, Holder has a solid-to-gold reputation as a federal prosecutor. And he served as a not-fancy judge in the District of Columbia's Superior Court. When the right tried to tar him with the Rich screw up when he was on Obama's vice-president selection team, it didn't much stick--at least, not enough to fell him. The Obama folks must be making a similar calculation here.

I don't know enough about Holder's particular role in the Rich episode to know for sure whether they're right to look beyond it, but taken as a whole, Holder's record shows that he knows his stuff and should be able to run the Justice Department well. On national security, his rep is not hard left. That's of a piece with the move to the center that Obama made on wiretapping by the National Security Agency over the summer. It could mean that he's going to disappoint liberals who want to rip up every Bush administration DoJ order. This is the test of governing as opposed to criticizing from the outside. The Democrats are about to own the war on terror. Holder will be nothing like Alberto Gonzales; that I think we can count on. It's harder to know how many degrees apart he will be from the current attorney general, Michael Mukasey, who was sent in to clean up the Gonzales mess. For example, what will Holder do with Mukasey's recent order expanding the FBI's powers to infiltrate and investigate? May the tests begin.

Whose Foreign Policy? That's the Question

At this point, I think we are arguing just to keep our skills up, because Hillary as Madame Secretary seems to be a done deal. But, my mother always said I would rather argue than eat, so: Whoa, Hanna, how is it that "in every way it is petty to want to deny her" the top foreign policy job when her views on foreign policy are not compatible with Obama's. (At least, that was my understanding when I voted for him.) As McCain campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb says in a post for the Weekly Standard, "On the issues, Clinton's a hawk ... Clinton flipped on the war, but as the nomination slipped out of her reach last spring she spoke of the threats this country faces, and of the prescriptions offered by Obama, in language that would warm the hearts of neoconservatives. ... She threatened to 'obliterate' Iran in response to unprovoked aggression against Israel, she spoke of unconditional meetings with the leaders of rogue states as 'irresponsible and, frankly, naive,' and she castigated Obama's transparent saber-rattling on Pakistan. ... On matters of diplomacy, Clinton's views are not so different from those held by John McCain and most Republicans [big fat bold letters mine]—and they are certainly well to the right of Obama.'' 

I fail to see why it is "right-minded, in a feminist way'' to appoint someone whose views were rejected by the majority of Americans. And though I understand the impulse to aw, just go ahead and give it to her, this job is too important to be anybody's consolation prize, and that she has suffered does not mean she has earned it. To me, her trippy Tuzla flashbacks, or whatever those were, do not suggest a firm grasp of even her own life. Emily B., you imagine that though she's been a lousy manager in the past, she's "too smart not to figure out (finally) how to successfully delegate the management of this'' State Department. But isn't history a better predictor than IQ?

Yes, Hillary (Because I'm Rooting for Tracy Flick)

My fellow Emily, as usual I read your acerbic post and find myself about to disavow my own previously held views. Why did I find myself aflutter over the prospect of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton again? Oh right: She could ace this job! You are right that she has not proved herself as an administrator. But here are three quick retorts: That is only part of the state job, three's the charm, and she is too smart not to figure out (finally) how to successfully delegate the management of this. Plus the bonus: She must be through with some of her worst campaign managers. On the soap opera front, for once I don't want Bill drama to disqualify her. I hated the idea of the retread of the two of them back in the White House. But this would be her work, her office, and I can't believe the Obama people haven't made it clear that Bill's role should be limited to the cheery star-power glad-handing he is so good at. If they think that they can work with her, then like Hanna says, I'm ready to trust them. Also, I want the Democrats' rival houses to come together this way. This president is taking over with all the world in economic shambles. It's the right time for putting aside past differences, for our most prominent politicians to act like their biggest and best selves. That's what Secretary Hillary would signify to me, on both sides of the détente.

Also, while I resist the idea that Hillary Clinton deserves this, in the sense that no one deserves any incredibly prestigious plum of an office, the Tracy Flick fan in me wants her to have it. And wants her to shine. Yes, she could also just go on being a good senator. But this gives her the opportunity for a grander next act. I want her to keep the pantsuits and the toughness but lose the brittle edge of her image that the campaign left us with. She should be the bitch who gets stuff done, as Tina Fey put it, but less bitchy. 

No, Hillary, No

Give Hill a Chance

Taking the Bait: The Feminist Case for Hillary as SoS

Yes, the Bill factor is irritating. But this story about forced abortion in China reminds me why it might be pretty neat to have Hillary as secretary of state—despite Emily, Hanna, and Melinda's convincing articulations of Clinton fatigue. Arzigul Tursun is a Muslim Uighur woman living in rural western China. A mother of two, Arzigul and her husband fled their village after learning she was again pregnant, in violation of Chinese law. When government officials threatened to seize their home unless Arzigul submitted to an abortion, the Tursuns returned. Due to international outcry, the situation is now in deadlock, with the 26-week pregnant Arzigul currently under watch at a municipal hospital.

So what does this have to do with Hillary Clinton? In short, with sexual and gender oppression at the root of so many global conflicts, I'd welcome a secretary of state not only aware of these problems, but with a history of speaking out on them. One of Hillary's most famous speeches as first lady was at the United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing, where she declared "human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights." On the campaign trail in July 2007, Clinton said, "When I traveled to China in 1995 ... I thought it was absolutely essential that I speak out against the practice in China of one child per one family. Because what that meant for women's lives was often forced sterilization and forced abortion."

Of course, we have a female secretary of state currently, and we've had one in the past. But Condi Rice has hardly pursued a feminist agenda, and Madeleine Albright, though she had a history of working on women's issues, didn't come with the platform and celebrity Hillary would bring to the job. If anything, Hillary became more comfortable with playing the role of feminist icon over the course of the long 2008 campaign. Partly, that was a purely political choice; she learned after that choked-up moment in New Hampshire that appealing to women delivered more votes than some of her more hawkish advisers had assumed. But only her fiercest critics could accuse Clinton of not having real feminist convictions. In a Washington Post interview as her primary campaign faltered, Clinton said, "Oppression of women and discrimination against women is universal."

As secretary of state, Hillary would be Obama's chief diplomat. And indeed, it would be strange to see her directing negotiations with Iran, for example, after harshly attacking Obama for wanting to speak directly to that nation's leaders. But if Obama gave Hillary some latitude to develop a platform on international women's issues, it would send a powerful message. Maybe that doesn't outweigh all that Clinton fatigue—but it's at least something to consider.

The Obamas on 60 Minutes

Yes, it is embarrassing, but I am going to say it, anyway: How glorious to have a president I can not only stand to see on television, but would have watched over Desperate Housewives, had it come to that. I kept trying to think of the last time such a thing had occurred—is it time yet? the president's going to be on!—but the answer is: never. ("For the first time in my adult life ...") A year from now, Obama will no doubt have to do more than show up and say true things grammatically, absent any mugging or winking. But tonight, he had me at "America doesn't torture.'' And when he declined to place sole blame for deregulation on Republicans. And when he said he was not very interested in having the same old tired left-right tug-of-war. So for as long as this lasts, I'm going with it.

I was a little surprised that he put Eisenhower up there with FDR and Lincoln on his list of presidential greats; Was this post-partisan politesse, or was it Eisenhower's lack of drama he admires? His warning about the military-industrial complex, maybe? Or the taste and vision of his granddaughter?  

It also came as news that the first couple's 60 Minutes interviewer, Steve Kroft, was such a T-Rex: "So, you have a new dog and your mother-in-law's moving in?'' (Right, it stinks to be Obama.) But 44 put the kibosh on that and on Kroft's suggestion that Michelle's whole mom-in-chief routine is going to get old in a hurry when she's "knocking around that big house'' on Pennsylvania Avenue. "Here's one thing I know about Michelle,'' the president-elect informed him. "She's serious when she talks about being a mom; that's why our girls are so wonderful.'' It doesn't happen by accident, in other words, or in five-minute snatches of quality time. So we shouldn't judge low-income families by one standard (stay home and read aloud all day; turn off that TV!) and Ivy League graduates by another (you're home with your kids? gosh, sorry to hear that). If parenting is so important, how come Kroft and Traister and maybe most of us at some point act as if no one who could get a decent job would spend their days doing it? Obama seems proud of his wife's accomplishments as a mother, among other things—and why wouldn't he be?

Hillaries Everywhere

My dread about the Hillary revival is more general. All of a sudden the Clintonites are everywhere—on TV, in the papers, at all the Washington parties. It's as if they've been hiding out for the last eight years, planning their private-school auctions, and now they're ready to take over again. One brave, path-breaking Hillary rewarded for a lifetime of hard work and suffering, I can handle. But the whole lot of them colonizing the transition is too much. The Clintonites are not dreamers. They came to power during a Republican era and have a constricted view of what they can accomplish. Over the years, they have lost whatever blue-sky instincts they once had and have turned into schemers and professionals. I can see what's going on, from Obama's point of view. He is above these sorts of staffing details. His vision goes right over John Podesta's head, straight to the heart of the problem. Still, it's making me nervous.

Hillary for Senate

Ann, don't you love how we've all turned into headhunters for Hillary, eager to pitch in and help her locate just the right job? State wouldn't be the best possible platform for her diplomatic and managerial skill set. But Hillary as war czar isn't quite the ticket, either. (Because nearly everything reminds me of a scene from a musical, what I'm thinking is "May God bless and keep the czar ... far away from us.'' In the Senate, for example.) Obama has created a problem for himself by dangling a major cabinet post as an option; if he doesn't offer it to her now, her partisans won't be happy. But it would be even worse to begin his bright new day in Washington with a confirmation hearing starring all the ghosts of Clinton scandals past. And Defense doesn't work as a Hillary landing pad any better than State does; her initial and lingering poor judgment on Iraq wasn't a plus in any way. Where did rewarding those who were wrong about the war ever get us? Truly, I never followed the '04 reasoning of those who argued that since Bush made the mess, he should be the guy on cleanup. During the run-up to the war, I remember talking to a top Clinton foreign policy person who patiently explained to me that, in fact, the Clinton and Bush administration's views vis-à-vis Saddam and invading and coalition-building were just not that different: "Together if we can, alone if we must.'' Which is why Clinton at DoD would not be different enough for me.

The Brass Ceiling for Hillary?

Melinda and Emily, you're probably right that somebody should have whispered to Obama, "Wait, you'll be sorry," before he summoned Clinton for a Chicago chat about the State department slot. But either no one did, or he didn't listen, so now what's he going to do? Offer her secretary of Defense. The cons are all the same (and who knows, he may be counting on her to consider the prospect of filling out all those forms, and decline). But here are some fresh pros. For him: It wouldn't hurt to have someone who voted for the Iraq war in charge of handling the withdrawal, and she's been a member of the Armed Services Committee for years. He wouldn't be unleashing another globe-trotting Clinton when Bill is already out there, and it would ratchet down her hobnobbing with world leaders. Pros for her: Here's Clinton's chance to be a first and break the brass ceiling. State would be so been-there-done-that.

I'd Like To See Her Application

Hillary for Secretary of State?

Sarah Palin "Freed?"

Here’s Sarah Palin at today’s press conference at the Republican Governor's Association in Miami. It’s Palin minus the sass. But plus the gravitas. Minus the “betchas” and “atchas” and “gotchas.” But plus the edgy new slouch. But also minus the wink (Thank God).

If anything, Palin looks like she’s playing Tina Fey at a mob funeral in New Jersey.

Putting aside the absurdity that she’s finally giving her first national press conference because “the campaign is over,” I find her almost totally unrecognizable. I have one foot in the Sara Mosle camp (brilliant post!) and am desperate to put her behind us. My other foot is in the Andrew Sullivan/Anonymous Liberal/Kevin Drum camp: Covering her as though she is a serious politician with serious things to say is folly. But whatever you think of Sarah Palin, her performance today had none of the “charm” of the last two months, but weirdly, held none of the terror. Turns out Palin playing Palin isn’t very interesting at all.

Sarah, Michelle, and Hillary

Did I say Palin in '12? Correction: Palin in '09. And did I say she'd be back? Wrong-o; she shows no sign of going away.

As for Michelle Obama, my beef with that Rebecca Traister piece about the "momification" of the next first lady is that Traister supposes Obama is in mourning for her career in hospital administration. But based on what? She likewise assumes that Obama's emphasis on her duties as mom-in-chief were hoked up only to help her hubby get elected. In her view, the only reason Obama hasn't dropped the whole schtick now that the coast is clear is that she can't risk looking like a Hillary Clinton as first lady.

Only, Michelle Obama isn't Hillary Clinton; for one thing, I believe her when she says she has no political ambitions. Not that there would be anything wrong with it if she did have, and if she changes her mind later, she's got my vote. But why is a focus on her role as a wife and mother assumed to be just for show? Is she required to regard being a hands-on mom and first spouse as small potatoes just because she's in every way an equal partner to the president-elect and attended schmantzy schools?

As satisfying as running PR and community outreach and volunteer programs for the University of Chicago Hospitals no doubt was, like Emily I have a hard time seeing the White House as a step down. Is there a woman (or man) alive who wouldn't gladly take a few years off to advise and support the president?

Can smart, strong women not choose traditional roles? Everything I know about Michelle Obama tells me that this really is her choice, not her consolation prize. And if we're not OK with that (can you say projection?) I'm not sure it's her problem.

Give the Teacher a Carrot

I'm intrigued by today's story in the New York Times about Washington, D.C.'s, reform-minded superintendent, Michelle Rhee, wanting to end tenure for public school teachers in the district. Let me begin by saying that I've always been a skeptic of the ever-popular scapegoating of teachers' unions as the sole cause of poor performance in inner-city schools. That's not to say that unions, or at least some of their members, aren't occasionally a big problem. (Even Albert Shanker, the late head of the United Federation of Teachers, used to concede as much.) But they aren't the only problem, or even, always, the main problem.

At the impoverished, inner-city public school where I taught third grade in the early 1990s, there were indisputably some bad actors who desperately needed to be shown the door. But the same could be said of a lot of workplaces where unions don't exist. (Were this not the case, a TV show like The Office would have no resonance.) These few unproductive or inefficient teachers typically paled against the other problems the school faced: gross overcrowding, no supplies (I had to buy my own chalk), an endless stream of incoherent educational fads foisted on teachers from district headquarters, and students who couldn't be sweeter (third graders still want to hold your hand) but who were desperately poor and often saddled, through no fault of their own, with dysfunctional or absentee parents.

The union, in fact, was often one of the few forces maintaining minimal conditions at my school. I have no doubt but that for the union, my already overcrowded, third-grade class—it had 34 kids, the legal limit at the time under the teachers' contract—would have had dozens more students. And we all know of superb suburban public schools that manage to succeed despite the presence of organized labor. Obviously, labor, alone, isn't the crucial difference.

Indeed, one of the biggest problems in poor districts is that a school is often the only decent employer. Given that school board members are typically elected and the high turnover rate among superintendents, it's easy for such schools, over time, to become patronage mills. In such an environment, job protection really is a legitimate concern. There's no guarantee that those who’ll be fired will be the right ones or that they will be replaced by anyone better. One district head tried to fire me because I'd written an article that he found embarrassing to the school system; what saved my job was the union contract. Then again, the person who apparently urged him to give me the ax was the likewise-offended union rep at my school. In sum, unions aren't all good or all bad; like most institutions in American life, they're typically something of a mixed bag but one teachers have tended to prefer rather than not.

I'm also impatient with Rhee's charge that teachers' unions are only about adults and their concerns, not the kids. So what? This could be said about the compensation package at almost any job. Few people, for example, expect pilots to forgo their union just to help out the frequent flier in Seat 3A (even if that passenger is an innocent, chubby-cheeked child). Or for the UPS driver to give up his union contract just because the packages he delivers are for a kid's birthday. Why, then, are teachers, alone among the nation’s professionals, expected to labor selflessly with no regard for their own self-interests? (After all, self-interest is "market forces" at work—something many school reformers are forever touting.) The attitude that teachers should labor solely for love, not money, strikes me as a carryover from a time when teaching was seen as "women’s work"—and thus not really worthy of pay. One of the many reforms Shanker ushered in was to equalize pay between women, who were typically given the lowest-paying jobs in elementary schools (as the assignment was regarded as akin to motherhood), and men, who were disproportionately awarded higher school positions because these were regarded as "real" jobs.

The above said, unions' complaint that Rhee doesn't properly regard teaching as a lifelong profession strikes me as outdated. This idea might have made sense 50 years ago (when schools benefited from a captive employment pool of talented women and blacks, who had few other professional options). Nowadays, the labor force is far more mobile. Few people stay in one job their entire careers. Today’s selfless community organizer might be tomorrow’s president of the United States. In this environment, Rhee is right, I think, to insist that schools must be able to look beyond career educators to train and attract talent.

What's potentially promising about Rhee’s approach, I think, is that she is at least offering teachers a carrot instead of just a stick. She wants to significantly boost salaries (by as much as $30,000 a year) for all those (not just the few in "combat" positions) who are willing to voluntarily forgo tenure. To foot this bill, Rhee isn’t relying on taxes but on charitable donations. That brings up the question of whether these pay increases will be permanent or just an elaborate bait and switch. (Unions have reasons to worry: Rhee's eventual successor might have entirely different priorities.) But given that many school system heads want to abolish tenure without offering teachers anything in return, this at least seems like a step toward a more genuine compromise. In the meantime, Rhee would do well to remember that teachers unions are powerful not because they're inherently malign but because, in many ways, they continue to represent teachers' interests. I, for one, don’t begrudge these teachers, like any other workers, negotiating for the best contract.

Michelle Still Has Feminist Cred

I am trying to decide why I don't share the distress that Rebecca Traister expresses on Salon in her thought-provoking essay about the "momification" of Michelle Obama. Traister criticizes the press for covering not her departure from her former job at the University of Chicago Hospitals, but her clothes and her kid-piloting and her propensity for domestic-art shortcuts. Traister blames the media for its lack of curiosity about what it's costing Michelle to become "an extension of her husband" and for assuming that she, not he, is the one sheperding her family through their actual move. Michelle Obama, Traister concludes, "will come to stand in more prominently than anyone could have imagined for the shortcomings of feminism."

For a bunch of reasons, this seems more off-base than on-target to me—and also premature. First of all, I don't buy the reflexive blaming of the media. Michelle Obama is putting her own motherhood and sisterhood and wifely virtue front and center. She did that in her speech at the Democratic Convention, she did it during the campaign, and she's doing it now. You can wish she didn't feel like she has to, but she surely knows what she's doing. To wit, Michelle Obama can't risk repeating Hillary Clinton's rocky first lady performance. And so she won't. The media is merely following her lead. To be fair, Traister acknowledges some of this. But she soft pedals Obama's own choices while kicking the press, which is a little convenient.

Also, don't we imagine that the Obamas made their bargain about their roles a while ago? Didn't Michelle Obama effectively stop working at her hospital job long before now? That is a real sacrifice, don't get me wrong, but on the other hand, her husband is president. That is an accomplishment with its own set of rules. It's also one that requires a team effort, and that gives Michelle Obama, as crack defensive end aka first lady, enormous power. A weird and retro form of power, to be sure, but power nonetheless. Before we knock all of that, let's give her a chance to wield it. She is promising to focus on the concerns of working women. Amen and hallelujah: If she does it and gets somewhere, that will be concretely groundbreaking in a way that all this image-obsession never is, and she'll come to represent not the shortcomings of feminism, but its strengths. Maybe Michelle Obama is the woman to channel Eleanor Roosevelt (without the misery of marital infidelity, of course).

And in the meantime, yes, she is the one honcho-ing their physical move, or at least whom to delegate it to. I hope so! Because I want my president-elect working on other pressing matters like our economic crisis. I am glad Traister reminded us that the Obamas used to have a different kind of partnership and that Michelle Obama had to work hard to make her peace with her current role. But hey, when quitting your day job gets you to the White House, how much can the rest of us rue the trade-off?

Let's Go Home

Forgive me, but I can't be bothered with Palin anymore. I want to linger with the victor. As I've thought about Obama's speech on election night, and his demeanor since, the word that has stayed with me most isn't the names of the groups he said he hoped to unite (blacks, whites, gays, straights, etc.) or the particular policy proposals he reiterated. Rather, it's the name of one of the temptations he hopes we'll avoid as a nation going forward: "immaturity." 

It's a striking word for a politician to use (along with the more customary "partisanship" and "pettiness" ). Reading the Newsweek series about the campaign, I was less interested in the latest revelations about Palin's wardrobe than those about the sheer childishness of the Hillary and McCain camps: the toddlerlike tantrums, the puerile infighting, the impulsiveness, the adolescent refusal to accept responsibility for anything that went wrong. Many commentators, of course, have noted Obama's self-containment, his self-discipline, his unflappability. His campaign's motto was No-Drama Obama (i.e., no teenage theatrics). But isn't this just another way of saying that Obama is that rare thing in recent American politics: a grown-up as opposed to a mere adult?

By contrast, Bush, McCain and Hillary remain, quite literally, children. One or both of their parents are remarkably still alive. Indeed, what struck me most about Obama on election night was how alone he was on that stage, except for his own wife and children. (Even an aged Biden could hold his mother's hand.) And I wonder if, even more than race, this unusual parentlessness for a man Obama's age hasn’t contributed to what I regard as his singular strength and virtue in our youth-obsessed culture: his maturity. Yes, McCain was older and more experienced, but in this election, he actually came across as less mature. The youth vote went for the grown-up.

Obama's election may have finally closed the chapter on the 1960s, by which most people mean the debates over Vietnam. But born as he was at the tail end of the baby boomers, Obama, I think, may have also turned the page on the extended adolescence of his generation. In many ways, the last eight years have felt like one of those teenage parties where the grown-ups are absent and things have spiraled dangerously out of control. Countries, like kids, need and want limits. So, while I've been overjoyed this last week as I've watched a confident and competent Obama begin to assume power, what I've felt most, I've suddenly realized, is sheer relief: A responsible adult has finally showed up to shepherd everyone home.