Perhaps the best time I had in America was when I was able to travel across the country, to what is often described as the heartland — the Midwest and the plains states and the South-west.

People who spend too much time in Washington DC start to lose their minds, even if they started out as pretty good people. Immersed in that twisted culture, it's hardly surprising that he got the impression of an America that is full of "gun madness, violence, junk food-fed obesity, scary religious fundamentalism, sickly sentimental patriotism and swaggeringly stupid politicians such as George Bush."

First thing anyone has to do to see what America is really about is get away from places like Washington, New York, or Los Angeles.

As an aside, I read another pro-America piece by a British writer recently. I found the comments below the article much more instructive than the article itself.

The hostility toward the idea that there could be anything good about the United States is palpable. Not just disagreement on the facts, or constructive criticism, but outright fury.

And much of it from Americans.

In too many of our higher education facilities and cultural fountainheads we in the U.S. are taught that hatred and contempt for our own country's history, culture, achievements, and political philosophy is the very height of intellectual sophistication. I have my own theories on the psychology of this.