Does Barack Obama love America?

At this point, who really cares?

Half of America isn’t paying much attention to him, and the other half is thinking about who might succeed him in 2016.

And yet, thanks to a recent comment by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the question shows it still has political legs.

The problem is that it misses the real point.

The issue raised by Mr. Giuliani’s comment is not whether or to what extent Mr. Obama loves his country. It is also not about Mr. Obama’s patriotism or lack thereof.

The real point is as true as it is frightening: Six years into Mr. Obama’s presidency, the man is still a stranger.

That’s what Mr. Giuliani was really getting at when he said, “I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America . He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”

With one pointed barb, Mr. Giuliani reminded us that even well into the middle of Mr. Obama’s second term, we still know so little about him.

Starting with his first major speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the mainstream media fell head over heels for him. When he announced a run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2007, that same media became John Cusack’s character in “Say Anything,” hoisting a boombox of love toward his window. And once he became president, they all but declared that they wanted to have his baby.

As a result of their stalkerish obsession, the media never vetted Mr. Obama. While they have made sport of rummaging through Republican candidates’ garbage, college records and past romantic relationships, they refused to do even rudimentary investigative work into Mr. Obama’s background, education, family, friends and professional associates. Digging into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s college years is called “vetting.” Digging into Mr. Obama’s college years is called “racism.”

They still refuse to do it. His college and law school records remain sealed, his “career” as a community organizer remains murky, his family background and early childhood in Indonesia remain murkier, and details about his ideological education from Communists such as Frank Marshall Davis and radicals such as Saul Alinsky, Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright remain largely unexplored.

It’s no wonder that questions about Mr. Obama’s very essence are still being kicked around. No one — Mr. Obama first and foremost — has ever answered them. (more…)