Sen. Obama is a partisan politician (nothing wrong with that) trying to win bipartisan support (nothing wrong with that). It’s beginning to look, however, as if he could indeed be successful in that effort (and there would be everything wrong with that). Fred Siegel does his best to puncture a few illusions here:

Obama is such a down-the-line partisan that, according to Congressional Quarterly, he voted more often with the Democrats than did the party’s majority leader, Harry Reid. This is the record that appeals to Ted and Caroline Kennedy and the aging MoveOn.org boomers who have long nursed hopes for a renewal of Camelot. But now as then, a charismatic political personality carries more dangers than benefits. The “politics of meaning,” which emerged from the Kennedy years and has now resurfaced with Obama as its empty vessel of hope, is doomed to disappoint because it asks more from politics than politics can deliver. In symbolic confirmation that Obama’s candidacy is as much about the liberal past as about the country’s future, the Grateful Dead, which disbanded years ago, has announced that it will reunite to perform a concert for him.

I have to say that the whole idea of “the politics of meaning” makes me shudder, but perhaps that’s just me. In the meantime, it’s well worth reading the whole piece.