More broadly, the world itself loved us more prior to January 2001 according to the loyal opposition:
Clinton told the assembled Democrats, "People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."
This sort of thing--harking back to a lost era when people the world over respected America because we weren't so mean/imperialist/greedy--is red meat for Democrats. It presumes that, rather than America's unique position in the world being the prime instigator of anger, it's instead a discrete set of policies enacted by George W. Bush which have sucked "the power" from "our example." And from this follows the usual litany of alleged administration misdeeds: the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the invasion of Iraq--without sufficiently "consulting of our allies"--Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, etc.
Riight. I see friends and allies when I look around the world today.
But no matter, recall those halcyon days prior to 2001 when the world loved us. You know, before we were unilateralists:
The] United States has demonstrated a growing willingness to act alone and to opt out of multilateral initiatives. Whether tiring of its international obligations, preoccupied with domestic concerns, or tempted to exploit its hegemony, the country has in a number of prominent instances withdrawn form collective initiatives, demanded exemptions from global rules, shirked commitments to international organizations, or extended its dometstic law extraterritorially.
The power of our example didn't seem to impress the world terribly much back then. It's almost as if it's their problem and not our problem.
