Perpetual-youth culture breeds arrogant adult punks

Barbara Walters is leaving her desk at ABC's "20/20." The grand dame of television news rides off camera to "read a trashy novel" once in awhile. She's exercised inhumane obsequiousness to land the big interviews of our times: Monica Lewinsky, Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson. Oh, journalist! Where is thy dignity?

Wait, a most revealing factoid emerged during Walters' departure thoughts: her ratings for her interview with Justin Timberlake, of 'N Sync fame, who narrowly escaped a Britney Spears 55-hour marriage, exceeded those for her Fidel Castro interview. Her subtle chide tells me one thing: Babs has had it with punks.

Barbara WaWa interviews are maddening, from the tree question flung at Katharine Hepburn (who I thought had more sense than to answer) to her softballs lobbed to Hillary Clinton. But she paid her dues with years of 5 a.m. reports for "Today," and she charted new territory for women in broadcasting. Now, at age 74, Walters' backbone emerges. She will no longer interview airheads for ratings. Babs thumbs her nose at the punks.

The world once shunned punks, those inexperienced, arrogant braggadocios. Punks don't realize what they don't know. A goodly portion of those between the ages of 13 and 17 are punks. You grit your teeth, bite your tongue, choose your battles, and pray for punkdom to pass before their low-slung pants fall off in public. But leave it to our perpetual youth culture to breed the adult punk. As boorish as teens, the adult punk is ubiquitous.

Paul O'Neill is an adult punk who described his former boss, President Bush, as "a blind man in a room full of deaf people." Missed the tenor of the Americans with Disabilities Act, eh?

I labeled O'Neill a punk in 2002 when he went to Africa with singer Bono and sat around in native robes and funnel cake fedoras for reasons no one yet understands. The impropriety of the treasury secretary of the United States partying with a rocker and the locals escaped punk O'Neill. Did he think the Swahilis' thoughts would get the bond markets crackling? O'Neill's new tome is a punk's attempted revenge because Bush rebuffed O'Neill's misguided thoughts on raising taxes. The economy's stunning turnaround proves O'Neill wrong, but punks don't let facts get in the way of a good bashing.

Howard Dean is a punk. Internet punks fund his campaign. This screeching bundle of insecurities has referred to President Bush as "odd." Screaming like a banshee in Des Moines, of all places, and not even in native Hawkeye garb, casts doubts on Dean's bell-curve analysis of emotional norms. Punks have tunnel vision. The world is their oyster.