JANET ALBRECHTEN:

Anti-Americanism runs deeper than Bush. "Anti-Bushism," says Markovits, is simply the "glaring tip of a massive anti-American iceberg." One immune to reason or climate change for that matter. As he explores, anti-Americanism dates back to 1492 and the discovery of the New World. Long before America became Mr Big, European cultural superiority meant that the US was regarded as venal, vulgar and mediocre - a lack of authenticity pervaded every part of American life. Australian playwright Stephen Sewell succumbed to the same lazy stereotyping in his play, The United States of Nothing.



Anti-Americanism cannot be explained simply by US policy stances or as anti-imperialism either. The US was hated during its isolationist periods and under its pacifist presidents. Under Bill Clinton, the US was a hyperpower according to French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine. (Clinton is now lionised by European elites as a effete kind of non-American). The hapless Jimmy Carter, so cautious of bloodshed that 52 hostages were held captive in the US embassy in Tehran for 444 days, was equally despised. Should he become president, even Barack Obama will also incur the anti-American wrath.



And, of course, US policy is not always right. Indeed, big countries make big mistakes. Pick a decade and you'll find a major stuff-up by American political leaders, from the passing of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act by US Congress in 1930 that led to worldwide protectionism, to the CIA overthrowing the government of Iran in 1953 which unleashed anti-American sentiment across the Middle East.



But the distinguishing features of anti-Americanism are its intellectual dishonesty and irrationality. US malevolence is assumed, not proven.



So the Islamic world will complain the US is anti-Muslim while overlooking Bosnia. Europeans regularly overlook the fact that American power, resolve and, yes, idealism, delivered them from both Nazism and communism. Nor, when they nip down to the corner store for some foie gras in their BMWs or Citroens, do they remember the contribution the Marshall Plan made to their postwar prosperity.