Mike Huckabee, who finished second in the Republican presidential primaries, said at the Republican National Convention:

John McCain offers specific ideas to respond to a need for change. But let me say there are some things we don't want to change: freedom, security, and the opportunity to prosper. Barack Obama's excellent adventure to Europe... (LAUGHTER) ... took his campaign for change to hundreds of thousands of people who don't even vote or pay taxes here. But let me hasten to say that it's not what he took there that concerns me. It's what he brought back: European ideas that give the government the chance to grab even more of our liberty and destroy our hard-earned livelihood.

He's right. Americans should never travel to Europe. The danger of brainwashing is too severe. Europeans are so sinister: They attract American teenager with their small freedoms. And once these Americans return to the US, they reduce freedom and liberty in the heartland. They will join Obama's communist party and take away your guns, domesticate you by providing free health care and make you addicted to Dutch weed, Belgian chocolate, German sauerkraut, Italian cappuccino, and French surrender-monkey cheese so that Europe gets richer and America poorer.

Two years ago, I wrote the post "Using the United States to Scare Germans." Perhaps I should write one about "Using Europe to Scare Americans."

Related posts in the Atlantic Review:

Huckabee: United States Does Integration Better than Europe

The Euro-American Religious Divide

Europe-bashing has Diminishing Returns

Europhobic Wash Times Editorial about the "EUSSR"

The Republican presidential candidates demonstrated some suspicion and negativity towards Europe, concludes the Atlantic Community:

Huckabee claims Europe is (unintentionally) to blame for some of the US' biggest terror threats, Romney is using an anti-European stance to further his campaign, Giuliani is turning away from Europe to focus on Asia, while McCain, appears committed to revitalizing transatlantic relations.

What do you think? Is that a fair assessment of the candidates' statement on Europe? And if yes, is their suspicion and negativity towards Europe justified?

The good news is certainly that John McCain is the frontrunner. For Europe he would be better than any other Republican candidate.

I appreciate your comments here and on Atlantic Community. Full disclaimer: Atlantic Community is my day job as editor-in-chief. Registration is required for commenting, but is real fast.

Soeren Kern, Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group, might have something interesting to say in his American Thinker op-ed "Anti-Americanism: It's About American Power, Not Policy," but I am not reading it to the end after this accusation: "They [=The Germans] routinely equate the US invasion of Iraq with the Holocaust." Such nonsense disqualifies him and the "American Thinker" from being taken as serious as their logo and name pretends to be.

The American "Thinker" has published such stupidity before (see The Superiority of American Culture and Sports), which might actually increase the popularity of the stereotype that Americans are arrogant and clueless.

Related: Top Democrat on Auschwitz, Guantanamo and Europe.

Many Americans have criticized German politicians for using Anti-Americanism in their election campaigns. Now it seems that at least one US presidential candidate wants to try out Euro-Bashing. Roger Cohen writes in the International Herald Tribune:

Romney, a Republican candidate for the presidency and former Massachusetts governor, was dismissive of European societies "too busy or too 'enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer." In so doing, he pointed to what has become the principal trans-Atlantic cultural divide. Europeans still take their Enlightenment seriously enough not to put it in quote marks. They have long found one of its most inspiring reflections in the first 16 words of the American Bill of Rights of 1791: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Dutch lawmakers claim that Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told them that "Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay."

Michael van der Galiën from the Netherlands takes issue with that comparison as well as with Lantos' demand: "You have to help us, because if it was not for us you would now be a province of Nazi Germany." Michael writes in his Van Der Galiën Gazette:

This is a great example of just why America is so unpopular in European countries right now. Granted, there's a lot of irrational anti-Americanism as well, but these are the kind of comments by which American politicians anger just about every single Europe; whether they're pro- or anti-America. (...) As I wrote recently, the Democrats dont seem to be any better at diplomacy than the Republicans are. If this is the Democratic way of reaching out, well, Im afraid that the hand thats reaching out will be politely ignored by the world.

Personal comments: I am surprised that the Democrats have not chosen someone else as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Tom Lantos is 79 years old. He has earned and deserves his retirement. (As usual, emphasis in bold added by me.)

Americans are (...) more likely than most Western Europeans to think their culture is better than others. Over half of Americans (55%) agree with the statement, "Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others," a larger percentage than in Canada, Spain, Germany, France, Britain and Sweden. But Italians are even more confident than Americans in their cultural pre-eminence; 68% of Italians believe their culture is superior.

Question to our readers: Is this feeling of superiority the American equivalent to European Anti-Americanism? While many Europeans make themselves feel good by trashing America and by describing Americans negatively, many Americans -- according to the poll -- make themselves feel good by telling themselves that they are better than others.

Personal opinion: Most Americans that I have met are not arrogant and don't act as if they would feel culturally superior.

This year's polling results are similar to those from a PEW poll in 2004, which were mentioned in the Atlantic Review post The Superiority of American Culture and Sports, which discussed how several liberal and conservative US media outlets criticize the Soccer World Cup and European culture (nihilism, infantile, defeatist attitudes, etc). Yes, I understand if you mistrust polls. Most polls have some flaws. The critics of Anti-Americanism often point to examples of Anti-American statements to make their case. That method has flaws as well and is not representative or scientific.

Finland, followed by France, offers working people the most statutory vacation, at more than six weeks per year, the report, an international snapshot of how much paid leave people get by law and in practice in 21 countries, says. The United States is the only country where employees have no statutory leave, and they get about half as much time off in reality as Europeans get, according to the report, compiled by the Washington-based Centre for Economic Policy Research. 'The United States is in a class of its own,' the report says. 'It is the no-vacation nation.'

The Europeans Do It Right: I applaud a whole continent shutting down for a month. The only way we can really shut down and enjoy time off is with our colleagues' help.

Liberty and democracy require limited governments, while supranationalism by definition tends toward unlimitedness. The former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky refers to the EU as the "EUSSR." He does so, he explains, because the former USSR and the EU share the same goal: the obliteration of nations. "The European Union, like the Soviet Union, cannot be democratized," he says. If the EU becomes a genuine state itis bound to be an evil empire, because there is no European nation.

Europe remains a stronger Christian fortress than people realize. The West is awash with fear of the Islamization of Europe.

The result has been a rediscovery of the continent’s Christian roots, even among those who have long disregarded it, and a renewed sense of European cultural Christianity. Jürgen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.” Europe may be confronting the dilemmas of a truly multifaith society, but with Christianity poised for a comeback, it is hardly on the verge of becoming an Islamic colony.