To be fair, there are an awful lot of Americans, so 11000 emails is not a huge percentage. There will always be some rabid nutters anywhere - and this little spoof definitely drew some out.

I have to say, though, that all the Americans I have met over here seem to share the same dismay that those of their contrymen who have never left the US to see the rest of the world do misunderstand the world's opinion of the US in a big way.

I can see why - in the US you can travel 3000 miles and still be in the same country, so it may seem that nothing else is important. In Europe you could visit pretty much every country in the same distance (ish - I haven't really calculated this one) so you are made very aware of the multitude of different viewpoints, languages etc.