As regards the positive views of those events held by French elites -- just as American elites hold the '60s and '70s mobilization of American youth in awe -- Guillebaud continued:

"This generation of baby boomers largely controls the news media and cultural life. The majority of broadcast chiefs and newspaper, magazine and book publishers and senior editors 'did' May '68. They are simply indulging their own nostalgia. The boomers … are first and foremost celebrating their own youth."

The same holds true about the idealization of a politically involved young generation here in America. The politically activist baby boomers were "useful idiots" here, too.

They were a major, perhaps the major, factor in America withdrawing from the Vietnam War. And if one believes that the American attempt to prevent South Vietnam from falling under Communist totalitarian rule was an immoral, imperialist venture, then America's young people were terrific. Likewise, if one believes that the movement toward having college students help shape college curricula was a good thing, then the youth movement of that time was a boon to education. But if one believes that America's defeat in Vietnam was unnecessary, and that it led to unspeakable atrocities in Southeast Asia, to a greatly weakened America and to a revived Left; and if one believes that college education in the liberal arts has deteriorated since then, enabling students to obtain college degrees with little knowledge of history and of Western civilization, let alone increased wisdom, then the youth movement of the '60s and '70s was a moral, social and political disaster.

Yes, young people were also involved in the civil rights movement. And that was a wonderful thing. But unlike the anti-war movement, which was largely spearheaded by, and relied for its effectiveness on, young people, the civil rights movement did not need massive numbers of young people in order to prevail.

Having been a young person at that time and having watched as my university (Columbia) had its classrooms taken over and teaching interrupted by fellow students; having watched the sexualization of society that followed the "Make Love Not War" generation; having watched America become obsessed with youth rather than wisdom as a result of the "Never Trust Anyone Over 30" mantra of the '60s young people; having seen the myriad speech codes that arose, ironically, out of the "Free Speech" movement at Berkeley and elsewhere; having watched pacifist-like doctrines decimate America's moral compass; having witnessed a selfish preoccupation with an ever increasing number of inherent "rights," with a commensurate devaluing of inherent moral obligations, I, among many others, am not enamored of the '60s and '70s youth movement.

So, forgive me, but I for one am not encouraged by the ecstatic reaction of young people to Barack Obama. The track record of politically excited youth movements in modern Western history is not a good one. And I see no reason why this will prove to be the first major exception.