Doubtlessly realizing all this, Obama delivered his patriotism speech in Independence, Mo. -- the heart of that small-town America he consummately insulted and alienated. While I disagree with much of what he said in his speech, my main problem is that his words were carefully designed to mask the extent of his extreme liberalism.

His description of patriotism wasn't entirely objectionable. But as with all of Obama's flowery orations, we should look beyond the rhetoric. What we really ought to be asking is whether he qualifies as a patriot under his own definition of the term.

He said: "Patriotism is always more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people. Instead, it is also loyalty to America's ideals -- ideals for which anyone can sacrifice, or defend, or give their last full measure of devotion."

Yes, but do Obama-style liberals really get warm and fuzzy over America's ideals? Do they really share the predominant worldview of the Founders of this nation, as Obama implies?

America's Founders believed that owning firearms is a necessary and indispensable personal right. They did not consider abortion a sacred right of women. They did not oppose capital punishment and certainly didn't intend to outlaw it in the Eighth Amendment. They would have been horrified with the liberals' idea that we should fight wars through the courts instead of on battlefields and confer constitutional rights on noncitizen enemy combatants outside the territorial jurisdiction of this country. They did not believe in suppressing Christian expression or symbols in the public square or in selectively honoring free speech and censoring that which certain elites and malcontents consider to be politically incorrect or to be threatening to their liberal mainstream media monopoly. Their instinct was not to side with hostile nations or surrender our national sovereignty. They didn't believe that appellate judges should make law. Even the most radical federalists among them would have been mortified at the evisceration of states' rights that has occurred under expansive activist interpretations of the Commerce Clause and the use of the tax code to punish producers and radically redistribute wealth to the point that almost half the people don't pay income taxes.

Ask yourself: When it comes to his patriotism, does Obama protest too much?