The theory holds that Barack Obama, through his father, acquired a worldview twisted by opposition to British colonialism… Wouldn't this theory mean that our Founding Fathers were also twisted by opposition to British colonialism? Or maybe the idea is that we had a right to throw off the British yoke, but the Kenyans should have put up with it, because the British occupation there was so much more benign.

But the Kenyans were Africans! They needed imperialism, while Americans didn't. That, at least, seems to be the unspoken premise. Larison and Massie have more. Massie's insight here is particularly apposite:

The British press – especially, I am afraid, on the right – loves wetting its knickers any time a new President is elected, fretting that they won't make the "Special Relationship" the centrepiece of their foreign policy and all the rest of it.

It would be better if American discourse didn't use British chippiness as its lodestar in understanding the president. For myself, I can only repeat how amazing I find it that conservative Americans now see anti-imperialism as somehow un-American.