Barack Obama's Love of Country

Ironically, this presidential race, in spite of its unusually extended length, has proven itself a spectacle to behold.

That it has had its share of redeeming moments, I won’t deny. Yet it also has had its share of the bizarre. Particularly bizarre is the sight of a presidential candidate and his wife attempting at every turn to convince the electorate of their love for America.

Of course the candidate to whom I refer is Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.

One would think that the patriotism of any politician, let alone those who have reached the heights to which the Obamas have successfully climbed, would be a given. However, that they obviously feel the need to impress upon the country their love for it establishes conclusively that there are many doubts regarding the patriotism of the Obamas.

That people should have doubts is understandable, given not just Barack’s friendships and associations with people whose animosity toward America is impossible to credibly deny, but the curious comments made by the Obamas themselves.

There is one statement that Obama has made repeatedly that deserves comment.

It is true that he routinely speaks of America in the future tense: America, he laments, is not what it could and should be. And it is equally true that this claim in itself is noteworthy as far as it suggests that it may not be the real America that he loves as much as the America of his own leftist imaginings that he hopes to forge into being. However, it is his expressed longings for the ghost of America past, his regrets that America is not what it used to be, that puzzles.

For that matter, it is, well, bizarre, that anyone who subscribes to the “politically correct” orthodoxy that has been thrust upon our public political culture should long for the good ol’ days. After all, according to this doctrine, “racism,” “sexism,” “classism,” “homophobia,” “imperialism,” and “xenophobia,” are the gravest of evils, and they are evils of which the American past is thoroughly ridden. That being so, to what past is Obama and his Democratic cronies referring when they unfavorably contrast the America of 2008 with the America of yesteryear?

To hear Leftists generally, and a Leftist like Obama in particular, lauding America for her glorious past is, as I said, bizarre at best, utterly laughable at worst. Obama believes, or at least claims to believe, that “racism,” “sexism,” and the like are the worst of evils, and we know that he thinks, like all Leftists think, that the history of American life since its inception is largely a history of these evils. Thus, for Obama to lament the passing of this history is tantamount to a Christian lamenting the passing of the pre-Christian, pagan world.

In all fairness, it isn’t just Obama who traps himself in this kind of dilemma by subscribing to our “politically correct” orthodoxy while asserting a love for his country. Many on the Right, especially the establishment or “respectable” Right, do so as well; they just haven’t been called on it yet.

Yet Obama, through word and deed, has made it abundantly clear that he is nothing if not an apologist for the prevailing orthodoxy. Thus, he is particularly vulnerable to charges of dishonesty, inconsistency, and even hypocrisy.

Interestingly, given Obama’s (and the Democrats’) commitment to Leftist orthodoxy, it is really impossible for them to proclaim a love for America. America can’t be loved for what it has been, for its past is replete with atrocities that could endear it only to a “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobe,” or other such “fiend.” Since, according to Obama and company, America’s present isn’t even as good as its past, they can’t love it for what it is now. And they can’t claim to love America for the future that it promises, for the future, insofar as it hasn’t yet unfolded, is non-existent, a non-entity.

Perhaps, in addition to that honest dialogue on race that Obama chastised us for neglecting, it is high time that we had a national dialogue on American “patriotism” as well. Flag pins and declarations of love for country that are readily distilled into sound bites fail utterly to answer the key question with which all of us, citizen and elected representative alike, should be made to reckon: Why do you love America?

Notice, this is one national dialogue that Obama doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to have any time soon.