MADRID—Strolling around Spain, it is not uncommon to overhear jokes like these:

Q: How are a Whopper and the Twin Towers similar?

A: There’s meat between the top and the bottom.

Osama bin Laden says to President Bush, “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.”

Bush: What’s the good news?

Osama: I’m coming to turn myself in.

Bush: What’s the bad news?

Osama: I’m coming by plane.

These are rather disturbing, but here in Spain, they are just two of many bin Laden and Twin Tower jokes that have been circulating since Sept. 11. I think that their insensitivity can be attributed to the Spanish sense of humor—they don’t take anything, aside from their food and wine, too seriously. But though the Spanish are probably the most gracious and welcoming people I have come across (besides the Irish), there is also an undercurrent of anti-American sentiment here, as in all of Europe.

I only came to realize from living abroad that the rest of the world pays so much attention to what America does (in some ways, the same as other colleges watch Harvard as an example), but America doesn’t reciprocate. This is part of what frustrates people on the eastern side of the Atlantic—there is a pervasive feeling that America is a bully in the playground, and that although the European Union has 300 million people and a booming economy with the richest culture and history in the world, America generally ignores it. And in terms of politics, America, at least in recent years, has flaunted its wealth and ability to ignore what the rest of the world is doing far too many times. Europeans have come to dislike the American government, and by extension, the American people.

Everyone to whom I spoke, young and old, wealthy and working class, perceive President Bush to be an ignorant farm boy, sort of a drifter, and they can’t understand how he got elected. I’ve had many of the same feelings myself, except that it’s perfectly clear to me how the Republican machine got him selected by the Supreme Court. When I explain to Europeans that he was a heavy drinker until the age of 40, that before he was president he had never visited Europe, that he rode into office on the shoulders of his daddy and the rest of the Bush clan, they are dumbfounded. Many people have laughed and said it is like a monarchy.

And the Bush administration’s policies—against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol and countless other global accords—have done little to help America’s reputation. Steel tariffs, the death penalty, the reluctance to support the U.N. and to fight AIDS in Africa: these shock most Europeans. When I explain that most liberal Democrats (myself included) support changing these policies and signing these treaties, the Spanish are much more friendly. They are relieved to know that not everyone in America is ignorant, or insane, or selfishly turning their backs on the world’s problems.

But I soon got sick of making excuses for my country and its appalling behavior. When I met Europeans in Paris and Pamplona, I introduced myself as an Irish citizen going to school in America. While I wasn’t ashamed of this, the truth is that aside from being born in Ireland and holding an Irish passport, I’ve spent the majority of my life in America. So why be deceptive about my background? Europeans seem to hold a lot of stereotypes about Americans; saying I’m from Dublin rather than Pittsburgh is like saying I’m from Boston rather than Harvard. The difference, of course, is that by saying you’re from Harvard people might resent you because they think you’re a workaholic, a social outcast or an elitist; saying you’re from America makes people think you’re fat, ignorant, rude and full of money.