City Lights solicits comments about German attitudes and knowledge about America. I'm no expert, but I did spend a couple of years in Germany and I read a fair amount of German press coverage both immediately following 9-11 and following the start of the Iraq war.

I'm clearly in the camp that says Germans know us better than we know them, although I also agree with some of the commenters that Germans are more ignorant of us than we might imagine. It seems credible that a lot of Germans wouldn't recognize Montana -- but I never met one who hadn't heard of Texas.

One thing about Germany is that the gap between the educated classes and ordinary folks is greater than it is here. Far fewer Germans go to college, and many are directed into technical or vocational classes after a few years of elementary school. Many more Americans fall into the categories some of the commenters describe: a few years of college, a year or two here and there of a foreign language, some overseas travel. So we pick up bits and pieces of what many Germans never really experience at all.

Still, the German press routinely reports about American politics and entertainment in great detail. The reverse isn't true. And Germans are, of course, much more likely to speak English than we are German.

The e-mailer who was mad at Germans ought to have read some of the post-9-11 coverage. The German papers not only treated it as a huge story, the coverage was overwhelmingly supportive and sympathetic. "We're all Americans now" was a common theme.

The contrast with the Iraq War coverage was startling. The German press clearly saw it as a huge mistake and criticized Bush constantly. We weren't all Americans anymore. I encountered some sentiment that Germans shouldn't help America get out of the mess it had placed itself in.

Is it fair to blame, as the City Lights' e-mailer does, this huge change in attitude solely on Germans? I don't think so. If any country in the last century has learned a lesson about the danger of getting into wars you haven't thought through carefully, it's Germany. Sometimes, friends don't let friends start wars.