Of course there are people who do a poor job of expressing themselves, even as administration advisors or eurotrib commentators.

What is not captured here is the broad exasperation with Europe that seems to be the general mood in America today. Most Americans have their cultural roots in Europe and want to see Europe in a positive light. And most Americans are not happy with the situation in Iraq, and how we got to where we are.

But I do not think that there would be much complaining at all here if we were to close down our European military bases, withdraw from NATO, not worry about Iran or Palestine or Turkey, and just hunker down over on our side of the pond. There is a strong isolationist tendency in America; the same one that caused us to not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, nor join the League of Nations or the International Court of Justice after the first world war, and that kept us out of the second world war for four years. It's not completely disappeared.

It sure would be nice if we could all manage to elect cooperative leadership.