Karl Rove is best known as an evil genius, but he’s also a really smart political analyst, today asking why the guy pledging to heal the partisan riffs thinks he can only do it as a President, and hasn’t really bothered as a senator.

Mr. McCain can now question Mr. Obama’s promise to change Washington by working across party lines. Mr. Obama hasn’t worked across party lines since coming to town. Was he a member of the “Gang of 14″ that tried to find common ground between the parties on judicial nominations? Was Mr. Obama part of the bipartisan leadership that tackled other thorny issues like energy, immigration or terrorist surveillance legislation? No. Mr. Obama has been one of the most dependably partisan votes in the Senate.

I’ll give Obama two smidgens of credit – working with Tom Coburn on earmark reform and Dick Lugar on nuclear nonproliferation.

But neither of those issues are ones where partisanship was a devastating obstacle. On earmark reform, it’s the appropriators vs. the reformers; there are way too many pork addicts on both sides of the aisle. On nuclear nonproliferation, it’s not like there’s a vocal pro-proliferation side of the aisle, just competing ideas on the best way to do it.

Rove’s conclusion:

Unlike Bill Clinton in 1992, Mr. Obama is completely unwilling to confront the left wing of the Democratic Party, no matter how outrageous its demands, no matter how out of touch it might be with the American people. And Tuesday night, in a key moment in this race, he dropped the pretense that his was a centrist agenda. His agenda is the agenda of the Democratic left.In recent days, courtesy of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Mr. Obama has invoked the Declaration of Independence, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Franklin Roosevelt to show the power of words. But there is a critical difference between Mr. Obama’s rhetoric and that of Jefferson, King and FDR. In each instance, their words were used to advance large, specific purposes — establishing a new nation based on inalienable rights; achieving equal rights and a color-blind society; giving people confidence to endure a Great Depression. For Mr. Obama, words are merely a means to hide a left-leaning agenda behind the cloak of centrist rhetoric. That garment has now been torn. As voters see what his agenda is, his opponents can now far more effectively question his authenticity, credibility, record and fitness to be leader of the free world.

At least Bill Clinton had some real centrist or reformer impulses – overhauling welfare, promoting free trade, reducing federal spending as a share of gross domestic product. What does Obama have?