Phelps and Obama

Michael Phelps and Barack Obama represent a new, different kind of American ethos than, to take two people at random, Mark Spitz and Bill Clinton. Phelps and Obama are standard bearers of the post-baby-boomer nation, one that is no longer so ridiculously self-absorbed or patronizingly anti-establishment. I'm generalizing here, but bear with me. Contrast Michael Spitz, who, "sounding brash and cocky," predicted he would win six golds in Mexico City in 1968, with Michael Phelps, who consistently refused to talk about his eight-golds attempt. (Spitz won four that year.) Then, after winning seven in 1972, Spitz, aged 22, gave up swimming, signed with William Morris Agency, and set out on a Hollywood career. He did sports cometary and got a bit part in a show called "Emergency!" before fizzling out due to lack of talent. (Check out his IMDB page.) And then there's the mustache. According to this blog, Spitz grew the mustache "as a form of rebellion against the clean-cut look imposed on him in college" and then kept it because it psyched out the competition. To top it off, the Daily News ran this story just yesterday that quotes Spitz as saying that, if they raced in their respective primes, he would tie Phelps. I mean, come on. I've got nothing against Spitz, but he is very 1970s, very self-entitled, very, in a word, baby-boomer.

Phelps, as there is no need to report, displays a different persona. Just check out the difference in facial expressions in their pictures below. Sincere, hard-working, within-the-system, self-effacing even if self-confident, Phelps represents what is expected, what is valued, in 2008. I think that Spitz, if he were competing today, would not capture people's attention the way Phelps does. And Phelps, no doubt, would have come off as square in 1972.









The differences between Clinton and Obama are similar and just as striking. Clinton came on the scene 20 years after Spitz won his seven, but politics is always a little behind sport and pop culture. Clinton, only four years older, was clearly brought up in the same milieu as Spitz. And he displays many of his same attributes: a cocky, stick-it-to-the-system sense of entitlement along with a willingness to sell out to that same system at the earliest convenience. Obama, on the other hand, displays the same sincerity as Phelps, the same confident greatness without arrogance, the same aura of earnest effort. You get the leaders--and, I suppose, sports stars--you deserve, so perhaps we are collectively doing something right these days. Now we just have to win that election. Maybe we can get Phelps to campaign for Barack...