Is the term "American People" condescending?

It annoys me when Barak Obama uses the term "American People". Can't he just say "us" or "we Americans". Or how about just plain "Americans". Doesn't the term "Americans" refer to people who live in the United States of America?

You don't here Canadian politicians refer to their countrymen as "the Canadian people". Lucien Bouchard was big on saying "le peuple Québécois", but most of the time he would use "les Québécoises et les Québécois".

I'd just like the Harvard educated big shot from Hawaii to say "we the people of America" once in a while...