From the perspective of a leader there are two types of loyalty. The first is the sort that Steven Jobs has for Apple. If you checked Jobs’ closet I’m sure you would find Apple T-shirts, Apple ballcaps, etc. The walls of his posh estate(s) are probably covered with Apple awards, Apple photos, Apple banners, etc. His car keys: Apple keychain. His license plate: APPLECEO. His favorite pie… you guessed it.

Jobs loves his company just as many CEOs do. They love to promote them, talk about them, brag about them, etc. Most often they consider the people who work for them to be extended family. With Jobs this passion for his complany is palpable, and it’s easy to imagine that if he someday succumbs to his health challenges his final thoughts will linger on the people, places, and things that are the Apple Corporation.

The second type of loyalty doesn’t spring from an economic creation, it grows out of a patriotic fervor for one’s homeland. Military leaders, political leaders, and even leaders of civic organizations can appreciate the depth of feeling that can at times overwhelm these otherwise pragmatic men and women. “My Country right or wrong” most often makes sense to this group, and they probably count themselves as fortunate that they can express their love of Country proudly. America, in theory and in practice, is a nation that any leader should find easy to defend, and love.

Patriotic loyalty is a natural emotion for any politician, and it’s hard to imagine a politician of any stripe reaching the office of the Presidency of the United States without this very human trait. Hard to imagine until recently that is.

Barack Obama does love America, but not in the sense that he would take a bullet to defend her from enemies foreign or domestic. He loves America in the same sense that Steven Jobs loves Apple. Obama doesn’t want the American Corporation to fail, but he neither thinks that the idea of America is any more special than the idea of France, or China, or Kenya for that matter. He isn’t married to America, he is going steady. He likes her a lot, and she may be his favorite Country, but his loyalty is a mile wide and an inch deep.

It’s not that Obama has at times refused to salute the American Flag, it’s more likely that such an impulse just doesn’t flow naturally into his mind. It’s not that he intentionally mispronounces “corp(e)sman” when introducing military service personel, it’s more likely that our nation’s military customs are simply not his passion. No lapel pin? Failure to salute a Medal of Honor recipient? Anti-American comments abroad? None of these precludes Obama from running a secular corporate state like a detached technocrat, so they are easily jettisoned as superfluous flotsam.

One problem with detached technocratic leadership is this: Our enemies seldom have dispassionate leaders. America playing the role of Obama’s “friend with benefits” gets dangerous for us when the bully in the alley pulls a knife. Our paramour might hold the door for us, but will he take a shiv in the gut defending our honor?

Does a Country need to believe that its leader is passionately loyal to the ideas, traditions, and culture that animate its desire to remain united?

The answer seems self-evident. When Michelle Obama called us out as being a “down-right mean Country” we waited with futility for a response from her spouse that rejected such a notion. When she offered that it took the election of Barack for her to finally manifest any feelings of pride in America what we longed for was a passionate defense of land of the free and the home of the brave.

I mention Michelle because I believe that the words from a politician’s spouse are more likely to offer credible insight into a candidate than the words of the candidate themselves. Michelle may have never uttered the words “America is a down-right mean Country” to Barack, but it strains credibility to think that he never had an inkling that his wife loathed the Country that gave her the freedom to raise a wealthy and healthy family.

The Obamas, like most married couples, may not agree on every minute policy detail, but they definitely agree on any idea as large the goodness or badness of their own Country. Their preacher simply consecrated the family ideology, which hopefully stops short of eliminationalism.

Sorry for your luck Miss America, but your boyfriend is simply using you to advance a statist agenda. He likes your logos, and your patents, and your balance sheet, but your corporate stategy of “until death do us part” is antiquated. If you start to pull away expect a plethora of flowers and chocolate, but as for that ring you’re longing for America, forget it. He simply isn’t that into you, and he probably never will be.