Cry me a river
Nora Fitzgerald reports in the Chicago Tribune that U.S. chest-beating is a growing turnoff among Germans:

Sieglinde Lemke, a university sociologist who teaches a course called Americans in Berlin, says she can't cope with the avalanche of disdain for President Bush and the United States.

"There has been so much press and so much criticism of the U.S. and of Bush, I don't know what to pick out, where to begin," said Lemke, who is preparing a final lecture on how the United States is presented in the Berlin news media. "There is just too much material."

Surveys show a growing anti-American sentiment, which may be as high as it was during the final days of the Vietnam War.
...
A recent article in Der Spiegel newsmagazine describes Americans as the people who "eliminated the Indians, bombed Dresden, burned Hiroshima [and] didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol." The odd thing about it, the article was actually pro-American.
...
Germans are unnerved by the Bush administration's new national security doctrine, which reserves the right for pre-emptive strikes against potential enemies. The hard line on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, despite Bush's winning a UN mandate on renewed weapons inspections, compounded fears that the U.S. is indifferent to world opinion.

"I think the question is dangerous," Maria Etzold, 46, responded when asked whether she "likes Americans."

"Spontaneously, I would give the wrong answer and say no. I think American policies are aggressive and about money, oil, power and influence," said Etzold, who runs a children's bookstore in Prinzlauer Berg, a section of eastern Berlin.

"On television, Americans look so patriotic, like they want to run over the entire world," she added.

Patriotism is a ticklish subject in Germany, where any flag-waving or invocations of the fatherland summons images of its Nazi past. The country's politicians have questioned whether it is even possible to be "proud" of Germany. As a consequence, many of their citizens view the U.S. with unease.

Truly pathetic. Probably time to lower the odds on Germany for which European country will be first to adopt sharia. And I wonder how the St. Pauli girl will look in a burqua?

But not everyone has forgotten the lessons of history.

Older Germans, in particular, tends to remember the Marshall Plan to rebuild their country after World War II, the solidarity against the Soviet Union during the Cold War and U.S. support for German reunification.

"We can be thankful we had" the Americans, said Siegfried Zimmerman, 65, a pensioner in eastern Germany.

"The pressure President Reagan put on the Soviet Union helped to get rid of the [Berlin] Wall. Today I am free, I can travel and I don't have to wait 12 years for a car," he added.