Two of TalkLeft's pals just returned from a two week stay in Spain and Paris. We had dinner with them last night, and they were exceptionally bridled by our media's portrayal of the French as being Anti-American. Absolutely not true, they said. The French are Anti-Bush, not Anti-American. Here's backup for their position from Elmar Thevessen, executive news director for the German television network ZDF, who was interviewed last night by MSNBC's Brian Williams

Williams: A recent poll in France shows seven out of 10 people there want their country to use its veto power to block a second U.N. resolution that would authorize war with Iraq. In Russia, an overwhelming percentage, 87 percent, oppose military action against Iraq.

And, in Germany, one poll conducted late last month found that more than half of Germans think the U.S. actually poses the greatest threat to world peace, greater than the threat posed by either Iraq or North Korea.

For more on the reaction there, we are joined tonight from Mainz by Elmar Thevessen, executive news director for the German television network ZDF, at least as it's known here. Elmar, thank you very much for being with us.

And I'm curious how bad and what are the manifestations of the negative anti -- the anti-American sentiment these days.

ELMAR THEVESSEN, ZDF GERMAN TELEVISION: The German public basically thinks that the U.S. government has done a very bad job in explaining why it tries to go about this war effort in Iraq. It's a question of bad public relations and bad communications. The U.S. government -- it seems to change the goals of why it is going against Iraq all the time.

First, it was about a regime change. Then, it was about terrorism with connections to al Qaeda that weren't there, at least from the view of European intelligence services. Then, about disarmament. And we see some progress in disarmament right now. And now, all of a sudden, it's back to regime change.

WILLIAMS: Now one way it might manifest itself -- as a visiting American, let's say, how would I feel anti-American sentiment these days, not only just in Germany, but in Europe?

THEVESSEN: I think you would encounter a lot of discussions, when you talk to Germans or to French people, that people in those countries are very much opposed to the war effort, but I think they make the distinction between the American people and the Bush administration, the government. (emphasis supplied)

Our friends asked us to put out the word that the French were extraordinarily courteous and friendly to them, and went out of their way to assure them that they have no bad feelings for the American people. They like Americans. It really is Bush (and Rumsfeld) they don't like, not us, and this was repeatedly expressed to them. Our friends say the media coverage of war and Iraq is far superior and more balanced in Europe and no one should cancel a planned trip France because they fear hostile treatment by the French.