A highly-disliked Associated Press article titled “Obama may face grilling on patriotism” – rated 2.5 out of 5 stars by Yahoo! users – seems to take the somewhat xenophobic definition of “patriotism” by Red Scare-style conservatives for granted.

The Associated Press article starts off by stating:

Sen. Barack Obama‘s refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism.

Now Obama’s wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she’s really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

[…]

Although the article does end up reporting factual information and interpretation that disclose the black pr against the Democratic candidate later in the article, the anti-Obama lynching campaign by some conservative and nationalist circles to label the Illinois Senator as “un-American” seems to satisfy the Associated Press to use the word “patriotism” without quotation marks in reporting the hateful attempt to make an enemy of a person millions of Americans have voted for.  

And while the lynching campaign against Barack Obama by nationalist circles comes as no surprise – and will definitely become worse in the months to come – it is surprising to see the Associated Press stating that “Obama may face grilling on patriotism” suggesting that it has been somehow demonstrated that Obama is not a “patriot.” The Associated Press is the one that should face grilling… on (un)ethical journalism.