Part of the reason Obama doesn’t send his political adversaries up the wall is that he employs the language of unity and patriotism. He is clearly the most gifted speaker to grace American politics since Ronald Reagan. And as with Reagan, there is a basic decency to Obama that blunts dislike.

Much of his rhetoric is lighter than air — almost content free. It’s the past versus the future, hope over fear, one nation not two, yes we can, turn the page, and so forth. But when you get past the music and really focus on the lyrics, Obama emerges as an utterly conventional, down-the-line liberal Democrat. He claims to be all about the future, but his policy ideas are about as modern as disco and the leisure suit.

Obama always summarizes his health-care pitch with the dubious claim that if we just simplify record keeping and streamline health delivery we can save “$100 to $125 billion per year, enough to provide health insurance to every man, woman, and child in the country.” That’s dubious, to say the least.

The war on terror scarcely exists in the world Obama traces for his audiences. Instead, he focuses relentlessly on what he regards as the misguided war in Iraq. “We need to do more than end the war,” he intones, “we need to end the mindset that got us into war.” We know which mindset Senator Obama will bring to foreign policy — the “diplomacy only” style last employed to such great effect by Jimmy Carter.

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