Cokie Roberts, John McCain, and the Foreign Land of Hawaii

Cokie Roberts is catching a little heat today because she twice has attacked Barack Obama for vacationing this week in Hawaii, which she describes as "some sort of foreign exotic place." She actually criticized him for not being American enough, because he went to visit his grandmother where she lives, in one of America's 50 states.

Predictably, the leftwing blogosphere is agog at her foolishness. They quite correctly pick up on the fact that the traditional media will stretch to any length if they can make Barack Obama seem scary and different. This is not the longest stretch - merely the most recent and most transparently stupid.

But this particular mistake points to something bigger. When Cokie Roberts was born, all the way through her mid-teens, Hawaii was NOT a state. She was 15 when Hawaii finally became a state - well past the age of geography quizzes and memorizing state capitals.

Like John McCain, Cokie Roberts came of age in an America of only 48 states. To John McCain and Cokie Roberts, Alaska and Hawaii remain foreign, exotic lands. Their America - the America they learned about when they were in elementary school, the America they first pledged allegiance to, the America they grew up with - was not the America of today.

This year's election will be an historic generational shift. The White House will shift from those who view America as something less than what it really is to those who grew up in a country with 50 great states.

And if that makes Cokie Roberts feel like she's a stranger in s strange new land, so be it.

The new America does not see Hawaii as "some sort of foreign exotic place". It's America, and it is time to have a leader from the generation that knows it.