And you, Ann, simply look clueless

I think the video released by the Daily Caller yesterday, in which we see Obama imitating – who? Al Sharpton? Flip Wilson? – is newsworthy, if hardly earthshaking. Perhaps it would not be so newsworthy today had it been covered by the press back when Obama was running for president. In any event, it struck me as standard mendacious liberal b.s.; maybe my long-term exposure to this kind of stuff just leaves me unsurprised.

Ann Althouse, on the other hand, sees something nasty in the woodshed. She has published the following post at Instapundit:

AM I THE ONLY ONE OF THE INSTAPUNDIT BLOGGERS AND GUEST-BLOGGERS who loathes the Daily Caller’s exploitation of the 2007 video of Barack Obama stirring up the black churchfolk? I don’t think this is helping Mitt Romney with the swing voters at all. Like last week’s playing and replaying of the Obamaphone lady’s ravings, it repels me from Republicans. I’m a swing voter — I voted for Obama in 2008 and Bush in 2004 — and I am genuinely undecided this year. Those of you who are pleased with these seemingly exciting new weapons to use in the fight to defeat Obama are losing perspective. You are not thinking about how you look to the people you need to convince. Here’s a clue: You look ugly.

Conservative bloggers “look ugly” because they have drawn attention to a video in which the self-proclaimed racial healer demonstrates his ability to be a rabid race- baiter? Ugly because they point out that Obama told lies about the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and knew, or had reason to know, that they were lies? Ugly because they’re highlighting a side of Obama’s character which, had it been revealed in 2008 by an honest press, might have made a difference not only in the general election, but in the outcome of the Democratic primaries? And why on earth should so-called “undecideds” object to the airing of this video, or to conservatives giving it attention? Why should they interpret this as being unfavorable to Romney? As of this morning, the Romney campaign’s position was essentially “no comment.” We have been told repeatedly, even by the panjandrums of the legacy media, that Obama is an “enigma”, that no one really knows him. Is it the fault of conservatives that they should seek to remedy this problem?

I'm sure Ann is a nice person, and a fine law school professor; but whenever she opines on politics, more often than not she is to be found talking through the back of her neck. Her writing is too often like that of David Brooks, but without his fluid prose style: an intuitive, basically emotional response to the externals of a specific event, with little or no consideration given to the underlying elements of the event, itself, resulting in a squib of spluttering, yet tedious, piffle. And, sorry, but if you voted for Obama in ’08, and even at this moment, this late in the day, haven't made up your mind about which candidate to support, then your grasp of the stakes involved in this election is too utterly tenuous for your political opinions to be of interest for any reason other than as a portal through which the curious may wish to view the confused mind and muddled thinking of the "genuinely undecided" voter.

Update: I know this is ugly of me, but I couldn't resist the urge to point out this fabulous bit of hypocrisy.