Agreed. Why is it that every airport in the country has their TVs tuned to CNN? It drives me crazy.

Oh no, I'm so sorry. LOL That's awful. LOL CNN, that's terrible. LOL Democrats, ugh LOL

I can picture it, sorry for laughing so much, it's just kind of funny. LOL Poor babies. LOL

Have a good time in Vegas.

Oh no!! LOL! I am horrified for you! It's bad enough it's all over the papers than having to sit there and listen to the drivel. I think this calls for a drink!

oh, bless your heart. LOL.

beth, i finally gave in and followed a link from either harvey or beebee. great blog.

I don't doubt that you don't like it, given your political leanings.

However (and this follows up on your Olympics post from May):

My cousin's fifteen year old daughter (from L.A.) and her high school French class recently went on a tour of Europe (not just France, but also England, Belgium and Italy). About half of the kids are hispanic and the rest are about evenly split between anglos and Asians. Their teacher is from Romania.

My cousin said that they were given explicit instructions to avoid speaking English (especially after they left England). They were to speak French, Spanish or any other language, but not English, and to tell no one that they were Americans

Beth, this is sad. I have travelled outside of the United States, and I was never embarrassed or ashamed of my nationality. I never felt I had to pretend not to be an American, and I was proud of who I was.

You can say what you want about how the rest of the world is 'wimpy' or it doesn't matter what they think or whatever the heck you want to, but when are kids have to begin covering up their Americanism, like it is some kind of a bad thing, I have to blame President Bush (who had the world WITH us in the days after 9/11) for turning us into a pariah.

John Kerry has said he won't cut and run from Iraq and I believe him. It is time to turn to someone who can and will work with the international community.

Sinister Minister, I disagree with you completely.

When my huband travelled to Europe in the 90's, he was told the same thing while vacationing. (He was an Active Duty Army officer at the time) - to not look American.

In fact, while my husband was growing up in Germany (the son of an American Army officer) in the 60's, he was knocked flat by a terrorist bomb in Germany - aimed at Americans

European hatred for Americans is nothing new. It has been there for many years.

So you can vote for Kerry if you like, but I will guarantee you that many Europeans will continue to hate us forever.

And they hate us because we don't want to be like them.

Sinister:

When I lived in Paris in the middle 60's, the French kicked us out of there and took their marbles out of the military side of NATO.

In the 70's I walked into a police-terrorist firefight in Frankfurt. I was knocked flat and injured in Heidelberg when the Baader-Meinhof bombed the PX parking lot.

When stationed in Germany in the early 80's, we were told to tone down our 'Americaness' when traveling, anywhere in Europe, less Great Britain, cuz people didn't like us.

When I went back to Europe in the 90's, same thing.

A salient point from today's Wall Street Journal:

Let's get to the real point. George Bush has deeply irritated France. That would be more distressing were it not for the memory that the last time the French resented America this much was in the mid-1980s. That was when President Ronald Reagan was more intent on winning the Cold War than pleasing the Elysee. And you know what? We won.

Your daughter could have had a wonderful time in Europe if she had talked Britney-speak and simply said, "I hate George Bush." She would not have had to buy a meal, ever.

I'm sorry, but I just don't give a flying flip in that regard, and I lived among the French and Germans (not in the US enclaves, but 'on the economy') for over 15 years of my life, spanning 4 decades. Ich spricht Deutsch (and it was a minor in college) and I used to parler francais, though that has slipped a lot.

There was always somethig about us some Euro was unhappy about.

Perhaps it's because in this century at least, they've never taken care of their own problems - they expect us to do so, under their leadership of course, we bucolic rubes are so unsophisticated (but we die well). They didn't even lift a finger against Milosevic until we prodded them to do so, and that only after we had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it - and then they were mad at us anyway. I was involved with Kosovo.

And they have built their nice little socialst/progressive post-WWII societies because we first enabled them to via the Marshall Plan, and then further subsidized it by effectively paying over half their defense-related costs... which has left them with ineffectual militaries (except the Brits, and not a bad thing, given how they were using them 1900-1945) and pretty much unable to do anything anywhere in the world - unless we get them there, support them, and subsidize them.

So, in some respects, either like teenagers or aged parents fully dependent on the parent/child, they are resentful. Well, at least their politicians, professional whining classes (academics and journos) and, d-uh, students are. I found many Euros one on one who were perfectly okay with me, and would be frank that publicly they will say what the 'public face' says while privately disagreeing with it - because Euros are far more socialized than we uncivilized boobs in the US are to defer to their 'social betters'.

No, we're not perfect, and we can be stunningly insular, but that's a post for a different time (and blog, mine). I'm a bit more worldly than that, and the fact that Euros want to bad mouth us is neither new, nor unusual.

As I said, you want to travel abroad as an American, do it as an Alec Baldwin/Dixie Chicks American and you will be just fine.

Go abroad as one of those people who is willing to/has put their life on the line, and get bitched at - or knocked flat by a bomb, or sniped off a guard tower. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and like body armor.

Tough noogies. I got over it, and still like to go overseas, and don't hide who I am. I just don't trumpet it.

But even if we were butt-sucking cheek-kissers, they still wouldn't like us - because we are the big kid on the block, and no one likes the big kid on the block, especially, as in French governmental circles, that used to be you, and you still tihnk it should be you.

*Clap clap clap* Whistles and cheers!

I read his and then spent the next couple hours folding laundry, hoping y'all would answer or I was going to and 1) I would have felt bad invading your blog with my opinion and 2) nobody answers the big questions better than y'all do! Kudos. Again. Also, he must not read either of you very often or he would know the answers coming... :)

SM - ummm... every nation in the "coalition of the willing"?

Sinister - all of my travel abroad has been good. It's my *living* abroad that was dangerous, whether as the 13 year old Proto-Armorer knocked flat in a parking lot, or the full-grown Armorer shot off a guard tower in Germany. Officially, a 'hunting accident'.

My point being, how you are taken as an american abroad is all in how you behave as an american abroad. If you are going to be an obnoxious tourist bitching about the food, you are going to pay a price, of sorts.

If you go abroad and feel like trashing the local's politics, you are going to pay a price.

If you go abroad and move amongst 'em politely, excepting a few well-defined places on the globe, you are going to do fine. *Most* americans who find themselves in trouble, got themselves in trouble.

Of course, if this is such a horrible place to be, why do we severely (and I mean severely) limit immigration from Europe? Much less the Pacific Rim, and Central America. Awful, horrible, despotic place this is - for an awful lot of the little people in the world... this place is still a Shining City On The Hill.

Most people I know who go expat from here are people who have already made their dough, and find socialist, smothering government congenial. But only *after* they made their wad.

But I don't see inner-city folk from Detroit hopping airplanes to go make a new start in Munich.

I do know a number of Germans who came here - for the room, the opportunity, and the freedom. To include the freedom to fail.