ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: I’m A Brown Woman Who’s Breaking Up With The Democratic Party: I realize now that the love has been one-sided.

The first vote I ever cast, at 18, was for Bill Clinton. The last vote I cast was for his wife, Hillary. My adoration for Hillary bordered on mania. In college, I named my ficus plant after her. Twenty years later, I canvassed, held fundraisers, dragged my 8-year-old daughter door to door, proudly wore HRC’s face on T-shirts and housed campaign volunteers in my home.

I loved you so much that I cried each time I voted. Thinking about the women who died fighting for my right to vote did it every time. I cried when I voted for Bill. For Barack Obama. I wept when I voted for Hillary. You’ve been that kind of mad love to me.

And now I want to break up.

I realize now that the love has been one-sided, unrequited. You’ve never recognized me, as a brown woman. You’ve taken my love, my money, my tokenism, with nary anything in return. You married the white woman and hooked up with me on the side.

Oh dear. It’s much worse than that.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: Sorry, We Don’t Take Obamacare.

AMY MOSES and her circle of self-employed small-business owners were supporters of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act. They bought policies on the newly created New York State exchange. But when they called doctors and hospitals in Manhattan to schedule appointments, they were dismayed to be turned away again and again with a common refrain: “We don’t take Obamacare,” the umbrella epithet for the hundreds of plans offered through the president’s signature health legislation.

“Anyone who is on these plans knows it’s a two-tiered system,” said Ms. Moses, describing the emotional sting of those words to a successful entrepreneur.

They were warned.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: “Bill Press, a liberal radio and television host, has authored ‘Buyer’s Remorse,’ a distillation of the Obama years that comes down to ‘yes, but’…‘The transformative new era of leadership Obama promised never happened,’ Press laments. ‘His presidency looms as a huge opportunity wasted.’”

Sucker. Or as David Brooks once admitted, “I’m a sap, a specific kind of sap. I’m an Obama Sap,” but Press (and Brooks) are far from alone in that department.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: My ObamaCare Cancellation: Seething At The President I Helped Elect.

We received the letter in the mail a couple months ago. The good people at Regence Bluecross Blueshield were pleased to inform us that due to Obamacare our current low-monthly premium, comically-high deductible medical policy would no longer exist come January 1, 2014. Pleased, because a new and better plan would be offered in its place. Old monthly premium: $578 for a family of four (non-smoking, helmet-wearing, and paternally snipped). New premium: $1,123. A 94% increase.

Once the sound of boiling blood dissipated, in my head I heard my Republican friends chuckling at the sight of a liberal Democrat hoisted ten stories high on his own petard. How’s the view up there, Obamacare Ollie?

Plus this:

At a certain point in the conversation, the accountant/lawyer had to get off the phone. “I have to stop answering your questions,” he told Peter. “I can’t ethically advise you, because honestly I don’t know the right thing to do. Nobody does. There are no answers. Right now it’s a complete clusterfuck.”

Yeah, pretty much.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden: I mistakenly believed in Obama’s promises.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: Frank Bruni: I’m beginning to think this Obama fellow isn’t all he was cracked up to be.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: Jeffrey Immelt Sours on Obamanomics. So is this a tipping point?

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: “Bruce Springsteen threw his support behind Barack Obama in the 2008 election, but when it comes to 2012, ‘The Boss’ won’t be hitting the campaign trail for the Boss of the United States. . . . Springsteen said he still supports Obama but expressed disappointment in his handling of the job market and home foreclosures and disapproved of the attention Obama paid to corporations rather than the middle class.” So he won’t come out against Obama, but he won’t risk damaging his brand by campaigning for him this time around.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: David Brooks: “I’m a sap, a specific kind of sap. I’m an Obama Sap.” “The president is sounding like the Al Gore for President campaign, but without the earth tones. Tax increases for the rich! Protect entitlements! People versus the powerful! I was hoping the president would give a cynical nation something unconventional, but, as you know, I’m a sap.”

We’ve known it for a while, David. My question: Is this a real breakthrough, or will he lapse back into rubeitude at the sight of sharply-creased pants?

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: YOU CAN CALL ME “SMUG” AS LONG AS YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THE STING. You were played. I told you so at the time. The whole hope-and-change thing was an obvious con, and you were among the rubes who fell for it anyway. And yeah, I’m rubbing it in.

And, heck, I’ll link this while I’m at it. How things change. Given what’s going on, why wouldn’t I be smug?

UPDATE: Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Moe Lane emails: “I will admit to a certain amount of smug, myself. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t tell these rubes, over and over and over again. Jim Geraghty especially, back in November 2008…”

And Moe’s rubbing it in, too. Why not? It’s the chief pleasure offered by this miserable administration. And, as I said right after the election, you’ve got to take your fun where you find it.

MORE: Reader Michael Hankamer writes: “So I guess that recognition that Obama is a dunce, was always a dunce, and forever will be a dunce is the new definition of ‘uber-partisan.'” So it would seem. But since that characterization seems merely to increase the sting, I’m okay with it this time. . . .

And Prof. Stephen Clark writes: “By all means, rub their whole faces in the facts of this latest intervention. To be clear: if the left and Democrats generally do not savage this President in much the same manner they savaged Bush, if they are not out in the streets protesting, if they are not opposing his reelection, if they are not demanding his impeachment and trial, if they are not hoping for his very death, then they will have shown themselves to be every bit the craven hypocrites that many have long claimed.” I have not yet begun to rub it in.

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: Glenn Greenwald: It’s like Bush-Cheney all over, but worse! So much for the fierce moral urgency of change!

ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: Tim Rutten: Say, That Mr. Obama Is No Better Than Bush On Civil Liberties.

This keeps happening. Ah, but remember when you now-disappointed Obama supporters were lecturing us about the fierce moral urgency of change? With such overweening self-righteousness? Even as you resolutely failed to look at what was going on, or to inquire into what Obama was actually like? So pardon me, now-disappointed Obama voters, if I point out that you’re rubes. Again, and again.

You were expecting a Chicago machine politician to show an enthusiasm for civil liberties?

I expected something more like what we got. And I turned out to be right, didn’t I?

ANOTHER “RUBE” SELF-IDENTIFIES: Ed Koch is deeply disappointed in Obama’s treatment of Israel.

ANOTHER “RUBE” SELF-IDENTIFIES: “We are shocked and stunned at the Administration’s tone and public dressing down of Israel,” Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman said in a statement.

UPDATE: Reader Anne Butzen writes:

Had to chuckle when I saw that quote from Mr. Foxman. I receive fundraising letters from the ADL now and then, and always marvel at his harangues – to read him, you’d think that Evangelical Christians were the greatest threat to world Jewry today. So this must have come as a terrible shock to him. If it actually causes him to wake up to the real world, though, then it may be a blessing in disguise.

I’d be surprised, but we’ll see.

JILL DORSON: Why I Regret Voting for President Obama. Another “rube” self-identifies. . . . Kinda fits in with this post.

UPDATE: Reader Elaine Curtis-Quick emails:

Saw Jill Dorson’s post about regretting voting for Obama, and one thing that bothered me was all the Palin bashing. From a woman, no less.

Do you think the rubes, like Dorson, who come to realize their mistake in allowing themselves into being swept up in the hype of Obama will ever come to the further realization that their extreme hatred of Palin is as much a result of media propaganda as their love of Obama was?

Actually, I think a lot of disillusioned Obama voters will double down on the Palin-hatred, at least at first, as a way of signaling loyalty to the tribe despite their problems with Obama.

HEY RUBE! Shepard Fairey, creator of fascistic “Hope” poster, blasts ‘disappointing’ Obama:

Fairey, who’s now a Bernie Sanders supporter, says that after Obama won the presidency, he went “quiet on a lot of things” he promised while running for office.

“I think history will be fairly kind of his presidency but I want things to move further in the direction that he promised as a campaigner,” he said. “He’s been more outspoken in the last 18 months.”

“I think he’s going out having done some good things and said some good things, but there were about six years there where I think he could have done more.”

Fairey said he had “high hopes” for Obama and that the president couldn’t blame his failures entirely on congressional gridlock.

“If he had been as outspoken as he was as a campaigner, I would give him a pass on not being able to push through some of the progressive things I hoped he would, but he was quiet on a lot of things,” he added. “That to me was unfortunate.”

Yet another rube self-identifies.

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:

Poverty rate rockets.

Another “rube” self-identifies.

Outdoing Lady GaGa.

The moral and intellectual decline of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Tom Brady and the lucrative nonprofit sector.

What I wrote on 9/11/01.

Blog reports from 9/12 Tea Party rallies.

Plus, pointing out the fake tea partiers.

CHRIS CILLIZZA: 10 years ago today Obama made a huge promise. He didn’t keep it.

Ten years ago today, then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois announced he was taking the first steps to run for president in 2008. In a three-minute video, he explained why — and what he hoped to accomplish.

It’s remarkable as a historic artifact — God bless YouTube! — but if you watch the whole thing (it’s only 187 seconds long!), you are reminded of the central reason Obama ran for president: to fix broken politics.

The big idea at the heart of Obama’s candidacy was that he — because of his background, proven résumé and the historic nature of his candidacy — was uniquely suited to solve the partisan gridlock that had seized our politics under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. That he could bring us all together through an appeal to our better angels and our shared values — and, in so doing, create a government that worked for all of us.

Another rube self-identifies.

COMING FULL CIRCLE PART II: Howard Kurtz: Liberal pundits experiencing Hillary buyer’s remorse.

Earlier this week: ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: “Bill Press, a liberal radio and television host, has authored ‘Buyer’s Remorse,’ a distillation of the Obama years that comes down to ‘yes, but’…‘The transformative new era of leadership Obama promised never happened,’ Press laments. ‘His presidency looms as a huge opportunity wasted.’”

What policies would a president who didn’t disappoint his far left backers implement?

[vimeo 2058075]

“SORRY, TRUMP, AMERICA CAN’T BE GREAT AGAIN — Our economy can no longer deliver the fast growth the candidates are promising. But that hasn’t stopped the demagoguery,” Michael Lind writes in the Politico.

Alternate headline: lefty writer discovers that Obama’s seven years in office have been a disaster. Especially since in December of 2008, a month before Obama would take office with both houses of Congress under the control of his fellow Democrats, Lind was predicting a rosy quick-start go-go economic future in Salon*:

Obama’s priorities make excellent sense. After emergency measures to stabilize the economy, public investment aimed at accelerating U.S. economic growth should be domestic reform priority No. 1. That’s because raising the rate of economic growth is the reform that makes all subsequent reforms easier. Accelerating the long-term growth of the productive economy will get us out of the recession faster, refill depleted federal, state and local government funding for public services sooner, and permit larger investments to be made with the same or lower tax rates in areas of needed reform like social insurance, energy and education. And the more rapidly the economy grows, the more quickly the colossal but necessary deficits the U.S. is now running up will melt away.

Another rube self-identifies — but he’s far from alone in that department on the left.

* That was before Salon decided it would be better to nationalize everything in America that wasn’t already socialized.

OUCH: How I learned to stop loving Obama and worry about the bomb: The Times of Israel’s military correspondent takes stock, six years after writing a heartfelt letter in support of the presidential candidacy of a young senator from Illinois.

Or as we say here in InstaPunditland, “another rube self-identifies.”

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: I Won’t Vote For Obama If Associated With ‘Stalinist Bigots’ Media Matters.

UPDATE: Reader Douglas Bass emails: Impatiently waiting for you to use the phrase “Another rube self-identifies” re Dershowitz. Heh. I don’t even have to say it nowadays.

DANIEL HENNINGER: A LESSON FOR THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS:

The American Catholic Church, from left to right, is now being handed a lesson in the hierarchy of raw political authority. One hopes they and their supporters will recognize that they have not been singled out. The federal government’s forcings routinely touch other groups in this country—schools, doctors, farmers, businesses. The church’s fight is not the whole or the end of it.

Since he appeared, no other word has been invoked more often to describe Barack Obama’s purposes than “transformative.” Last year, Mr. Obama began to be criticized by some of his supporters for being insufficiently transformative while holding the powers of the presidency—this despite passing the biggest social entitlement since 1965, an $800 billion stimulus bill, raising federal spending to 24% of GDP and passing the Dodd-Frank restructuring of the U.S. financial industry. Naturally an interviewer this week asked Mr. Obama why he hadn’t been more “transformative.” The president replied that he deserved a second term, because “we’re not done.” In term two, it will be Uncle Sam, Transformer.

Transformed into a place where what Washington wants matters more than what you believe.

Related: Eleanor Clift: Did Obama Pick The Contraception Fight To Fire Up His Base?

UPDATE: The Anchoress: You Bet It’s War.

Next: A requirement that mosques sell bacon.

MORE: Hispanics jumping Obama ship over contraception flap.

MORE STILL: A steaming pile of sexism from Hillary Rosen: “This public debate on whether or not the Obama administration’s sensible policy on covering birth control has turned into a boys against the girls fight. And the boys are out of touch and out of line.”

Shut up, boys. This issue is owned by women.

Related: Senate Democratic Women Are Boycotting Morning Joe. Join the club, ladies. Although for most of us, it’s not so much boycotting as forgetting it exists.

FINALLY: Another Rube Self-Identifies:

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan says President Barack Obama hasn’t kept his promise, when it comes to the new White House policy on contraception.

Sources told CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer that Archbishop Dolan feels betrayed after his meeting with the president on the issue late last year.

“All statements from Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them.”

WIRED: Four Contradictions In Obama’s Defense Plan. “Sometimes the analysis in the strategy suggests a policy choice that the strategy actually disavows. Sometimes it walks back controversial points. Sometimes it makes pledges that sound sensible at first blush — but don’t actually make sense the more you think about them.”

UPDATE: Herschel Smith writes: “The ironic thing about your link of Spencer’s post on Obama’s new defense policy is that it could have been titled ‘another rube self-identifies.’ Ackerman was a big Obama supporter.”

STEVE WYNN not so happy with Obama these days. “I’m afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States. You watch television and see what’s going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President . . . I’m saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime.”

Related: Another rube self-identifies.