The Political Chase

BREAKING: Goldberg research finds Obamas are ’self-hating yuppies’

Jonah Goldberg, an Xer, who received an undergrad degree from Groucher, claims he knows what is wrong with Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. After a puzzling research and analysis project, Goldberg has now concluded the Obamas are self-hating yuppies. Well, I do hope Sen. Clinton was promptly notified.

Since Goldberg, a Gen X neocon, does not hold an advanced degree in social or medical sciences (to my knowledge), I would be interested to learn how Goldberg definitively came to this conclusion. Furthermore, what version of the DSM is he referring to support his conclusion. Are we taking about Axis I, Axis II, or Alex P. Keaton as Goldberg seems to be loosely applying below.

Discussion follows Goldberg’s notes.

Barack Obama, the yuppie candidate - Los Angeles Times

There’s always been a certain cultural lag time to Barack and Michelle Obama, a kitschiness that’s been hard to pinpoint. But I think I’ve got it: They’re self-hating yuppies straight out of the 1980s, which was to the Obamas what the 1960s were to the Clintons.

For those too young to remember, “yuppie” was shorthand for young urban professionals — think Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton in the TV series “Family Ties” or Charlie Sheen in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” — who allegedly represented the collapse of ’60s values and the triumph of ’80s greed. Yuppies sold their souls for a BMW and a condo.

Ironically, the biggest complaints about yuppie materialism came from self-loathing liberal yuppies — like the Obamas.

The Obamas still seem stuck in that time warp, clinging to ’80s-style resentments and political assumptions. Michelle Obama is never so eloquent as when she’s complaining about the burden of student loans for her two Ivy League law degrees and covering the high cost of summer camp and piano lessons for her kids on her family’s half-million-dollars-a-year income.

“Don’t go into corporate America,” she exhorted low-income working mothers in Ohio in February, even though she is a highly compensated hospital executive. She admits to being consumed with “a constant sense of guilt” over having to balance work, politics and family. “It’s guilt, feeling guilty all the time.”

It’s Ronald Reagan — the president of the 1980s — who seems to loom so large in Obama’s world. (Recall how last year, Obama caught some flak suggesting he might be a new Ronald Reagan.) Reagan famously restored confidence in the nation while reducing confidence in government as the solution to our problems. He put a stake in the heart of the “Vietnam syndrome” and the blame-America-first ethos of the Democratic Party, as famously diagnosed by Jeane Kirkpatrick at the 1984 Republican convention. The Reagan Revolution moved the country durably to the right — so much so that even Democrats saw the writing on the wall.

It is worth noting that Dr. Mr. Goldberg is part of Generation X, whose thinking commonly has significant overtones of cynicism against things held dear to the previous generations, which would include Yuppies (Mr. and Mrs. Obama) and Baby Boomers. Although the distaste is more frequently associated Boomers.

It is possible Goldberg’s Gen X inclination for cynicism of Yuppies may have clouded his judgment and consequently let the "haters" modifier be included, but inappropriately so.

I quickly checked the DSM-IV-TR and was unable to find a specific reference to "self-hating yuppie" but maybe Dr. Mr. Goldberg is referencing the DSM-V, which is not scheduled for general use until 2011. (He’s probably in that special consultation section preparing for the release.)

It is also quite intriguing that man and wife share the same affliction, so the logical question is do they have the same etiology? Dr. Mr. Goldberg appears to suggest in his progress notes they may have the same etiology, although his notes are a tad cryptic and lend themselves to prose, rather scientific.

Second opinion, doctor? That would be my suggestion.