The Patriotism of Barack Obama

July 4, 2008

Barack Obama’s speech on “patriotism” to ostensibly commemorate the Independence Day holiday, was actually a politically-calculated maneuver designed to subvert the anti-patriotic and anti-American labels that have recently dogged his campaign.

Not far into his speech, Obama becomes preoccupied with crafting a new image of himself as a “true, blue” American patriot.

“Throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given…And yet, at certain times over the last sixteen months, I have found, for the first time, my patriotism challenged….”

Forgetting for a moment that he doesn’t mention a single person who has allegedly impugned his patriotism, Obama claims these accusations were leveled to “score political points.” He admits, however unenthusiastically, to a lesser extent, they’re due to his own carelessness.

We all get careless. But Democrats in general -- and Obama particularly -- need to ask why it is that only their “carelessness” is portrayed as “unpatriotic.” When was the last time John McCain – or any Republican, for that matter – felt the need to give a speech defending his or her patriotism? Undoubtedly it’s happened, but it certainly doesn’t spring readily to mind.

Obama’s decision to use an innocuous word like carelessness” to describe his own contribution to the image that he now seeks to deflate is clever, but also grossly inadequate. To misspell a word is “careless.” To surround yourself with people who don’t consider patriotism a virtue and who harshly condemn the US is reckless. Many Americans are legitimately suspicious of Obama because of the choices he’s made – over and over -- regardless of how he describes them. Obama’s attempt to trivialize his friendships with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and Tony Rezko by calling it “carelessness” is just plain insulting. It also reinforces the belief that his nonstop series of careless choices is due to an anti-American sentiment he shares with them.

Every single one of us has acted hurtfully or even bitterly toward those we love at some point in our lives. To love something isn’t always to act lovingly toward it. Yet it is a mystery how Obama’s “deep and abiding love for this country” is reconciled with his 20-plus years as a member of a Black Nationalist church saturated with anti-white and anti-American ideologies. Wright, Obama’s spiritual mentor, is a “black liberation theologian,” which teaches that the liberation of oppressed non-white people will only be achieved once “white supremacy” is destroyed. Consequently, love for America -- which promotes freedom of speech and expression -- is simply not an emotion black liberationists can be expected to feel. This is the ideology to which Obama has been exposed for more than half his life.

Whatever ideological differences Obama may have with the Rev. Wrights of the world, they’re differences in degree, not kind. To Obama, slavery is America’s “original sin,” yet he calls slave owners like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington men of great “stature and significance.” None of America’s founding fathers – not even Abraham Lincoln -- were racial egalitarians, yet they are extolled by Obama.

With his entourage of people who believe America to be a great purveyor of racism, how can Obama have a “deep and abiding love” for this country? If America has a history of racism and racism is the most abominable of sins, then by the logic espoused by Obama and his entourage, America is a country that deserves reproach, not love.

It is ironic that Obama laments the absence of quality civic education that has left American youth without the basic tenets of America’s founding history. It is his ideological brethren, after all, who have acted so aggressively to ensure its removal. For time out of mind, the political left generally, and the radical left in particular, have worked tirelessly to trivialize or even deny the immeasurable contributions of “our forefathers” to the unprecedented well-being that Americans of all races experience today. The left’s version of history portrays the founding fathers as hypocrites who affirmed their belief in God, while enslaving blacks, slaughtering Native Americans and denying women and other minorities the rights to vote or own property.

Obama’s professed patriotism is of America’s ideals. “Patriotism is … always more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people,” Obama says. It is also a loyalty to America’s ideals “that allows a country teeming with different races and ethnicities, religions and customs, to come together as one” (emphasis mine).

While beautiful-sounding, a closer look shows this concept of patriotism falls short. Ideals – at least the ones that Obama conceives as the object of patriotic love – are universal in scope. Patriotism, on the other hand, is an attachment to a particular country and people. The concepts of liberty, equality and the belief in God-given inalienable rights are not uniquely American.

An attachment to trans-national ideals is proper for a citizen of the world, but it is inappropriate for a citizen of a particular nation. It is even less appropriate for a president of that nation.