So an off-the-wall opinion piece represents American conservative thinking and a comedian represents a (European) response? Plus American attitudes towards Europe are hardly the rather recent creation of Fox News. All one has to do is read Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain to realize that Americans have travelled and reported on Europe for over 160 years and have decided mixed feelings. But the ingrained attitude is simply part of being an American and believing that they or their ancestors fled Europe for the right reasons. Either religious persecution, lack of economic opportunities, continent wide wars and most importantly a denial of political freedoms. These may not all be as relevant today but try convincing an American whose grandparents came from Germany or Spain or even China of that without those descendents begin talking about how his family achieved what it couldn't in Europe.

Media Matters and Dialog International, one sponsored by George Soros and the other calling anyone who disagrees with it racist?

It's Chapter VIII. And its Mark with a 'k.'

So are you now admitting that his second novel was not nicer to the French as you claimed. Or would you rather talk about the modern Olympic movement?

I doubt you have read any Faulkner to match what you haven't read of Twain. Except maybe from bowdelrized descriptions in Wikipedia. BTW, the Clemens family were originally French Huguenots. He grew up poor and ran away as a penniless preteen to work on the steamboats of the Mississippi.

But as usual whenever you are caught out fabricating info you just simply ignore the gaffe and slog on. But that foot-in-mouth must make it difficult to breath.

Then the question then is on what did you base your claim that Twain was more sympathetic in his writings on France as the result of another visit? If you only attempted to read Tom Sawyer and only it how can you make any judgement on Twain's attitudes except be repeating what someone else said about him? I wouldn't need to be pedantic if once in a while you checked your facts before commenting.

I brought up Mark Twain, without your claimed quotes, to give an example of Americans having certain attitudes about Europe and the French before Fox News came along. But instead of trying to understand that these attitudes, wrong or right, are part of American thinking you immediately launched an ad hominem attack on Mark Twain. Without actually having ever read anything beyond a few chapters in Tom Sawyer as you admitted.

I can try to understand German attitudes toward Americans, somewhat, by reading Karl May yet not have a hissy fit because he was factually challenged but rather acknowledge that Germans have made some of that lore part of their view of America. Same with Mark Twain a descendent of French Huguenots who obviously as fallen in with the Anglo-Saxons.

Ok, but only if you proofread your comments first to avoid such obscurities as "suffiance?" And again I never claimed Twain's observations were right but indicative of how long a mistrustful attitude towards the French in America goes back. Twain wrote for an audience that didn't particularaly like the French because he was a popular writer not a scientist.

Shoot, the link didn't print.

http://www.classicallibrary.org/twain/celebrated/01-celebrated.htm

I puposely didn't comment on the links as they are even worse as far as being typical. Only Mitch McConnell has any sort of actual power, the Examiner is basically a rag that publishes just about any conspiracy theory one could imagine and that sad little vignette of going bankrupt because of a lack of a universal health care has been debunked so many times it is now serving as a punch line for histrionics. It was found that Dr Thorne was counting any unpaid medical bills in a bankruptcy as the cause of that bankruptcy. And the figure she used was $2,500 ignoring perhaps the $20,000 owen on a car or the $250,000 plus owed on a house.

With this kind of do-it-yourself statistics I could prove that surfing in the ocean causes bankruptcy because the debtor owed money on a surfboard he charged to his credit card. Ignoring the years of late payments or maxed out cards.

Do we now form opinions of US attitudes based on The Simpsons? Can we judge Germans by Fassbender and Karl May?