A Question for Ann Althouse

I have a question for Ann Althouse.

She has done an outstanding job blogging about the multiple political train wrecks in Wisconsin, but she also voted for Obama, saying this today:

I voted for Obama, but I coolly observed all this emotionalism, soberly examined the 2 major party candidates, and made a rational choice.

I’ll take her at her word. Would Ann say that she voted for the policies or the results that her preferred candidate - Obama – has produced?  So many people have expressed disappointment with Obama that, to take Ann as an example, why did they think that Obama would be a different president than he is?

I began discussing Obama back in early 2008. I discussed why he was beating Hillaryand Edwards in the primary, his unsavory associations with 1960s terrorists and his pastor Jeremiah Wright, his sleazy financial dealings, the millions in untraceable campaign contributions, his creepy followers, his messianic complex, Obama as the"blank slate," the meaningless campaign slogans (HopeN'Change), and that’s just in the first few months of his campaign.

I am persuaded that a lot of people voted for Obama because of Palin. Now, that’s my opinion supported only by some anecdotal evidence, but I have some friends who have told me that and have read about a great many women who hate her because she is the polar opposite of what feminist women view as their ideal: pro-abortion, single parent, career gal with an Ivy League education. To them, Palin is a hick from the sticks with too many children, a baby they would have aborted, a graduate of “No-Name U” with a family (including her one and only husband) that’s part of her, and to top it off she’s an unabashed, un-nuanced, patriot and Christian. They made the excuse that because of McCain’s age she could have vaulted into the Presidency. But in reality, they could not imagine voting for her, so McCain lost them.

After the election, Ann (and many of the people who deluded themselves in 2008) believed that [H/T The Crack Emcee]

"The entire plan to bring Obama into office depended on the glorification of the man, whose actual experience was so bizarrely limited that it took some nerve to claim to be ready. Magic was required. The cult grew up not as he held power and needed to respond to a crisis. The cult was the campaign to bring him into power. It depended on our projecting all sorts of hopes and dreams onto him, and he knew it. Inside, he may have felt embarrassed by the whole enterprise, but he'd figured out that it could work, and he was right. Now, I think this worked because he really is a solid, normal person who remained grounded in the middle of all this craziness. And I like to think that, now that he's President, with his steely nerve, his intelligence, and his groundedness, he'll do the job that must be done. The trickery is over."

So what Ann really saw in Obama was a “solid, normal person” with “steely nerve, ... intelligence, and ... groundedness” who was lying to the rubes to get elected.

But he wasn’t. The guy who said that his election would heal the planet and cause the seas to recede was the guy we were warning Ann and all the other rubes about. Ann thought she had Obama figured out; that the guy behind the curtain was sane and smart and up to the job; the guy on stage was all an act.  As Glenn Reynolds so often asks "who's the rube," Ann?

All the evidence pointed to the contrary: his experience, his books, his associates, his statements, his lies. It takes someone who is really into self-delusion to believe that all this was fake and the “real” Obama would emerge after the election.

Intellectual Pride Makes You Stupid.  ... and denial is not a river in Egypt.

WELCOME NEW READERS.  Please enjoy the rest of the show.