Hours after Fox News host E.D. Hill apologized for including “terrorist fist jab” among possible interpretations of Sen. Barack Obama's on-stage "fist bump" with wife Michelle, Fox News contributor Dick Morris said, "[T]he question that plagues Obama is ... Is he pro-American?"

Morris made his comment on the June 10 edition of Fox News' America's Election HQ while discussing his latest syndicated column, "How Obama Can Win." After host Bill Hemmer commented, "[T]he point you were trying to make, Dick, in this latest column, is that Barack Obama can win in November, but to do it, he has to first show America why this country means so much to him," Morris asserted:

MORRIS: And the question that plagues Obama is not issues or his record or positions, it's whether he believes that or not. Is he pro-American? How does he feel about white people? How does he feel about American history? He needs to look America in the eye and say, “You know, America, you are a great country. We bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima not without batting an eye, as Reverend Wright said, we bombed them to save five million Japanese and one million Americans from dying if we had to invade Japan.” That's the kind of statement he needs to make.

Morris previously stated on the May 7 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor: "[T]he determinant in the election will be whether we believe that Barack Obama is what he appears to be, or is he somebody who's sort of a sleeper agent who really doesn't believe in our system and is more in line with [Reverend Jeremiah] Wright's views?"

Fox News personalities and guests have frequently questioned Obama's patriotism or asserted that Obama has a “patriotism problem[],” as Media Matters for America has documented (here, here, here, here, here, and here).

From the June 10 edition of Fox News' America's Election HQ:

HEMMER: Dick Morris is here to comment now. You can read his column for free at dickmorris.com. Dick, good evening to you.

MORRIS: Hi, how we doing?

HEMMER: This news, by way of -- let's call it Columbus, Ohio -- that he will absolutely not seek the vice presidency or accept it if it's offered. What do you make of this? Ted Strickland --

MORRIS: Well -

HEMMER: -- supported Hillary Clinton. She won that state quite handily back in the primary season.

MORRIS: I don't think that has much to do with it. I think it probably relates to his domestic ambitions in Ohio and maybe his pessimism about the ticket, although I don't know. But the point is that the old model for choosing a VP was choose somebody that can deliver a state, and it didn't work. You know, John Edwards was from North Carolina, and Kerry didn't come close to carrying that state.

I think that, fundamentally, what Obama needs is a national security type. He needs somebody like a Biden, a sort of Democratic Dick Cheney who's immersed in Washington, conversant with national security and can give people some level of assurance that he knows what he's doing in that area.

HEMMER: Well, there are rumors today that he's talking to a lot of people with military background and military experience --

MORRIS: Yeah.

HEMMER: -- which could be the angle he goes. You wrote a piece today about how Obama can win.

MORRIS: Right.

HEMMER: And the point you were trying to make, Dick, in this latest column, is that Barack Obama can win in November, but to do it, he has to first show America why this country means so much to him.

MORRIS: Exactly.

HEMMER: Has he not done that?

MORRIS: The president to the United States is the priest of our secular religion. He's the keeper of the flame. He's like the pontiff of our secularism. He's the one that tells us we're an exceptional nation, between two oceans put there by God to protect liberty, to give people another chance in life to fight for values around the globe. And that's the opposite of what Reverend Wright said.

And the question that plagues Obama is not issues or his record or positions, it's whether he believes that or not. Is he pro-American? How does he feel about white people? How does he feel about American history? He needs to look America in the eye and say, “You know, America, you are a great country. We bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima not without batting an eye, as Reverend Wright said, we bombed them to save five million Japanese and one million Americans from dying if we had to invade Japan.” That's the kind of statement he needs to make.

HEMMER: Your suggestion in that statement is that we're still getting to know Barack Obama --

MORRIS: Yeah, we --

HEMMER: -- and I guess in a lot of ways America is.

MORRIS: That's right. And Obama's a guy who has no immune system, you know? You build up an immune system in politics by people knowing you for a long time, adjusting to you. Like if we hear something nasty about McCain, we know he went through the Keating Five; we know that he ran against Bush; we know that he was a maverick; we know all of that stuff about him. Obama, we don't know anything.

And therefore, the first negatives we hear really shake us. That's why that Jim Johnson story has legs. The first guy he reaches out for is somebody who's hopelessly in bed --

HEMMER: Jim Johnson is the guy he's assigned to his what -- his trio of --

MORRIS: -- VP screening committee. First guy he reaches out to is hopelessly in bed with probably the most corrupt financial institution in the United States, Countrywide Mortgages. And the other guy he appoints, Eric Holder, is the guy who vetted Marc Rich and recommended to the president that he be pardoned.

So when he starts doing stuff like that, there are no antibodies in his system to resist that infection and it ends up hurting him more than it would hurt somebody who's more experienced.

HEMMER: Obama's response to that was, I can't vet the vetters that are going to vet the vetters.

MORRIS: That's ridiculous. Of course --

HEMMER: And it went around and around like that. Dick, I gotta run.

MORRIS: Of course you have to vet the vetters.

HEMMER: Thank you. We're early on here. Dick Morris, thanks. Check out his column for free, dickmorris.com. Megyn?