Does Obama Love America?

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani certainly touched a nerve by saying that President Obama doesn't love America.  In response, many have weighed in, from both sides of the political aisle, perhaps most notably a 12-year-old kid in Georgia who came down on his honor's side and soon afterwards started to experience some technical difficulties with his Facebook account.  (See also here.)  I've come to believe that there is an America that Obama loves, which is not the country as it actually exists, but the country that he wants to "fundamentally transform" (to use his words) America into.  Here are some things that to some extent lead me to have this belief:

As a candidate and later as president, Obama did not place his hand over his heart, the traditional civilian salute to the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance or the National Anthem, while others were shown do doing so.  In another instance at Arlington National Cemetery, he was shown without his hand over his heart, but this was during the playing of Hail To The Chief, which is a salute to him as president rather than to the flag, so I'll have to cut him some slack on that one.  Of course, in the future he might wish to dispense with the coffee cup before returning the salute of a Marine.  (If gets his coffee from KFC, he can actually eat the cup.)

To Obama, American exceptionalism is not an objective phenomenon, but instead a subjective belief inherent to being an American.  To him, believing in American exceptionalism is essentially the same as a British person believing in British exceptionalism and a Greek believing in Greek exceptionalism.  He has also accused America of being arrogant, perhaps thinking that the world would somehow benefit from America being more humble.

Obama does not appear to believe that American citizenship is anything special.  When Arizona passed a law allowing their police officers to determine the citizenship status of the people they arrest, the Obama administration opposed the law, thus taking the side of illegal aliens against American citizens.  Parts of the law were struck down by the Supreme Court, but this particular provision prevailed.  More recently, we have seen a large influx of illegal alien minors from Central America, allowed in by the administration, and the "executive amnesty" that applies to several million people illegally present in the United States.  I certainly find it appalling that the federal government, which is obligated under the Constitution (Article IV, Section 4) to protect the states from invasion, is instead helping to facilitate an invasion and in some ways aiding the invaders.  The administration is also, perhaps even more outrageously, inviting deported illegal aliens to return.  I would submit that it is legitimate to question the love for country of a person who participates in or permits these actions.

Some have noticed how the president criticizes America, as recounted here, here and here.  Criticism per se does not necessarily shows a lack of love toward the object thereof, but when you criticize your own country and its most common religion while praising the religion of those who would do your country harm, you shouldn't be surprised when someone starts to question what it is you love.  Obama's opinion of the Constitution itself does not appear to be very favorable.

I'm sure that there are some other things that could be pointed out, and that those who disagree with me (or with Rudy Giuliani) could point out a few things to support their opinions.  To borrow a term from the Bush-era left, we all have a right to dissent.  Others have surely explained their opinions on this matter better than I have, which is why I write for myself, rather than for National Review or American Thinker.  But in any event, I'd say that Barack Obama, by his words and actions, both before and after he became the president, has shown a desire to change America into something it hasn't previously been, which is not how you'd normally expect someone to treat an institution that he loves.