Thomas Friedman notes that anti-Americanism is less common in the growing countries of Asia, such as India and China, than in the failing economies of the Middle East.

To begin with, there a few "technical" reasons why anti-Americanism generally does not have the same edge in Asia as in Europe and the Middle East. Asia's leaders, as a group, have much more legitimacy than leaders in the Arab world, either because they have come to power through free elections or because they have delivered on their core promise to their people of economic growth. Because of that, they don't need to demonize America regularly to deflect their people's anger from them. Also, Asia generally is focused like a laser on economic development — and countries like China see investment and technology transfer from America as critical to their growth. "People in Asia do not hate the United States," Singapore's elder statesman, Lee Kuan Yew, said to me. "Big countries like China and India are focused right now on their economic development and they see in America an enormous well to draw technology and economic growth from."

But here's the problem: Young people want American education and technology more than ever, but fewer and fewer want to wear our T-shirts anymore — want to be identified as "pro-American." As one former U.S. diplomat in Beijing put it to me: "They want to cherry-pick us, not line up with us. We've lost prestige."

The idea of America as the embodiment of the promise of freedom and democracy — not just of technology and high living standards — is integral to how we think of ourselves, but it is no longer how a lot of others think of us. They are now compartmentalizing. The unilateral war in Iraq, the postwar mess there, the walk-away from Kyoto and other treaties, the Abu Ghraib scandal have taken a toll. The idea of America as embodying the charisma of democracy has been damaged. As the political theorist Yaron Ezrahi put it, "America as the do-gooder has been hurt, but America as the goods-doer is still there."

Fortunately, this situation is not irreparable. The longing for an America that exports hope, not fear, and that is an example of the best global practices and values, runs really deep in the world. In fact, it is one reason that some people abroad are so angry with President Bush — because they blame him for taking that America away from them. I'm convinced a different approach or different administration would elicit a big response from the world. But for now, we will pay a price, because when people want to line up for our visas but not for our policies, it means Americans alone will have to bear the burden and the price of those policies.

But Friedman is simply kidding himself if he thinks the Bush administration is the cause of all this. Granted, the Bush administration has made less of a pretense than the Clinton crowd about caring deeply what Europeans think. Clinton sat on Kyoto for four years, never submitting it to the Senate, but unlike Bush, he never publicly repudiated it. And it is true that Europeans seem to enjoy being delusional, pretending how much they liked America in the good old Clinton days. Granted, as an academic, I face a biased sample, but I have heard incessant snide carping about Americans and American policy, both foreign and domestic, since I came here during the first Bush administration. I usually ignore the cracks about "Is American culture an oxymoron?" from people who don't actually read, but know that the Irish are naturally literary, and still go to all the Hollywood movies. I did, however, lose my temper with a crack about fat American tourists coming from a fellow so fat that he needed to keep his pants up with suspenders ("braces" over here). But it is more than academic bias. I know several American businessmen here, mostly Dublin based, who said they simply stopped going to parties in the 90s because they got tired of the abuse.