Barack Obama on the baby boomer generation
Audio from an interview with Andrew Sullivan

My mother, you know, was smack-dab in the middle of the baby boom generation. She was only eighteen when she had me. So when I think of baby boomers, I think of my mother’s generation. I was too young for the formative period of the ’60s—civil rights, sexual revolution, Vietnam war. Those all sort of passed me by. So I really came of age in the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s.

The battles between Gingrich and Clinton were battles that took place in dorm rooms between young Republicans and young Democrats 20, 30 years ago. And that’s part of what we have to transcend. We’re re-litigating sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, Vietnam. And that’s part of why I think it’s so important to use this election to finally settle some of those arguments.

Because—here’s the interesting thing, Andrew—I think that the American people, in their own lives, have actually moved beyond these arguments. I think the American people recognize that, listen, it is both a good thing that women are liberated and gays and lesbians are treated with dignity and respect, and there’s nothing wrong with the virtues of monogamy as an aspirational goal.

Or, that it was a mistake for us to, after Vietnam, think that America could do no right and that there was never appropriate times for military action. But on the other hand, it still makes sense for us to be measured and thoughtful when we use our military and understand that the most important tool in ensuring our safety is the tools of diplomacy and our political and cultural power, and economic power.

So, you know, they’ve moved beyond a lot of these arguments. Politics has not.