Barack Hussein Obama.

Who is this man? Friend or foe? Saint or satan? American or no? There’s enough wrong here for me to feel justified in my concern.

He has Muslim roots, Muslim relatives. His most noteworthy brush with Christianity – apparently a horror for him – was when he was outed as a follower of the heretical Jeremiah Wright. On the world stage he speaks of American “arrogance”. He has covered his tracks so well that we know little more about him today than when he campaigned for office.

For every moment that he dazzles, there are two moments in which he disappoints, three in which he baffles, four in which he creates deep concerns by Americans whose views of their presidents are shaped by evidence of Americanism.

At the D-Day observance in France, he still had his mask on – seeming strangely detached, disconnected from the ghosts of the battlefield and their heavy insistent presence.

His demeanor is now a familiar distraction. It has gotten so all his speeches sound the same. The language is pious and lofty, but is delivered with a vapid malaise, his head wagging back and forth as he switches monotonously from one teleprompter to the other. I think it is partly that his speeches, and his life, are scripted. He says nothing, but reads all, with the enthusiasm of a husband checking his wife’s grocery list.

Bill Clinton suffered from somewhat the same malady – that of a serial poseur. He was always overly aware of himself. One network reporter remarked that, before he came into a room, he appeared to “fix his face” into an expression he felt would be suitable to the occasion.

I confess that I watched and listened jealously as Obama went about his duties in live broadcasts from the site where so many Americans, British, Canadians, Aussies, and other of our Allies, died 65 years ago. Yes, and some Nazis too. This was a clue to my lingering suspicion and distrust of Obama. I searched for signs of an absence of reverence and obligation on his part toward God and country. I do not think he is totally American. I do not think he feels totally American.

God almost didn’t make it into his speech. In the early going, he said something to the effect that, as the young Allied assault troops rode grimly toward the beach on that blustery day on the Channel, each one “prayed to his own god.” I don’t capitalize this because God is not a member of a “god” club, who is asked to take care of the devotionals each Thursday. He is God the Almighty and Omnipotent, maker of heaven and earth, whose hand was evident in the victory – though a costly victory for freedom.

It required a day or two of thought for this post to come together. I wondered first what to say, then how to say it. It took the memory of Ronald Reagan to firm up in my mind where Barack Obama fell so woefully short in his speech to the D-Day gathering above Omaha Beach.

Dr. Paul Kengor evoked that memory for me. No stranger to our own bloggers, he is a featured Townhall writer, and author of several respected books about Ronald Reagan and other leading political figures. Kengor writes almost reverently of Mr. Reagan, who in 1952 was a popular actor when he addressed a commencement event in Fulton, Missouri.

The movie star, noted Kengor, told the graduates that America is “less of a place than an idea.” The writer ventured that Reagan framed America as an idea that resided in the souls of men. Said Reagan:

“I, in my own mind, have thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land.”

That was how Ronald Regan saw America and its place in history, concluded Kengor. He wrote that Reagan challenged future generations to pick up the torch, and ensure America shines amid the darkness of humanity as “a Shining City on a Hill.”

In gratitude, I wrote this to Dr. Kengor:

“What a marvelous and fitting tribute to a man who may well have been America’s greatest president. He said things that many of us (I am now 72) hold dear about God, about our nation, and the ideas and ideals that came together to create the land we call home. I only wish that President Obama had many of the same perspectives that our beloved President Ronald Reagan had – just a few would be a precious gain. Obama somehow has no real sense of the history of our country. It almost seems that this is not HIS country. Anyway, you sketched a beautiful and memorable portrait of the dear, late president. Thank you.”

Where are we left? My take is that the main differences between President Reagan and President Obama are that Reagan was the consummate optimist, the proud patriot, the trusted friend and leader, the steadfast defender of freedom, the inspirational leader of the Free World, and one who unashamedly accorded God credit for America’s greatness. Sadly, none of these things seem to describe Mr. Obama.

Where President Reagan’s speeches were stirring, Obama’s are – well, boring, devoid of passion. Where Mr. Reagan’s agenda was based on a foundation of individual initiative, Obama’s bugle sounds the call to collectivism. Where President Reagan fought for lower taxes and less government, Mr. Obama seeks the opposite. Where Mr. Reagan called for peace through strength, Mr. Obama seems adrift, but tilts toward a philosophy of appeasement through inaction. Where Obama’s persona seems a confused and confusing hash of loyalties, one always knew where President Reagan stood. His messages were simple, direct, clearly framed, and totally made in America. If you were enemy or friend, you knew where he stood.

President Reagan, too, paid homage to the fallen Allied liberators at Normandy. His address took place on the 40^th anniversary of the D-Day landing. It was called one of his most memorable speeches. Here is part of what he said:

“What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge – and pray God we have not lost it – that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt. You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

“Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgeway listened: “I will not fail thee or forsake thee.” Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor, and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died. Thank you very much, and God bless you all.”

In a fitting twist of history, Ronald Reagan, a two-term U.S. president in the 1980s, slipped away on the eve of the 60^th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

Five years later to the day, history may recall, U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama had his own turn at the lectern.