Not being a Pythonista, I have the following questions:

1) Is there a (native or custom) date type in Python? Is it an object?

2) Midnight when? Today? This date last year? Sure there's a "zero value" for dates - it's the epoch for whichever platform or library you're using.

3) Why in would anyone call it a "date" if it's really a time?

Maybe I'm getting off into the philosophical decisions of the reptile wranglers, but this particular debate sounds a lot like someone made a decision long ago that had ramifications further than expected and now the justification is engrained, things are built on it, and no one's willing to make the 'correction.'