I enjoy reading Jeff Goldstein. I have a really hard time understanding those who bash him for making no sense. Most of the time, when he's writing about meaning, I follow him perfectly. Like this little bit of schadenfreude, on the whole New Yorker cover kerfuffle:

this is a bit like taking Swift to the woodshed over “A Modest Proposal,” or Christopher Guest to the woodshed over This is Spinal Tap.

What the progressive worriers should be doing is gleefully and full-throatedly noting the satire, then preparing to laugh at anyone who sees this as an accurate depiction of Obama. What they should be doing is enjoying a wry smile at their next cocktail party over the (presumed) idiocy of the rightwingers who might take this cover at face value, so shallow is their understanding of the literary arts.

But the real irony here is they can’t do that — and that’s precisely because their worldview is predicated on being able to control “meaning” by consensus. And one of the problems with such an incoherent method for determining meaning (by way of reliance on a given interpretive community’s ability to shout down competing interpretations), is that, at least in theory, another interpretive community can come along and claim another, diametrically opposed meaning, and — if their will to power is stronger — control the narrative by way of severing any ties to original intent.

In short, the left fears being hoist by its own incoherent linguistic petard.

Is that really so hard to understand? The left, having for years battled against any sort of concept of absolute truth in favor of an interpretive scheme that allows each individual or group to determine for themselves what "truth" is, is now running up against the logical consequence of their own cultural campaign. It's delicious to watch, although sad in that the whole project has even been allowed to happen.