There are those who argue that their hatred of America is caused by American actions - as a Cairo professor put it: "It's the policies, stupid!" This way of thinking puts support of Israel at the top of a list of actions that ends with almost everything George Bush has said or done. But Bush, to me, is an enabler of anti-Americanism, not a creator.
   It is a historical fact that anti-Americanism predates the US. It was not invented in reaction to the Monroe Doctrine or the use of marines to pacify Latin America or McDonald's or Hollywood or Bush. It was invented by European biologists who wrote of the New World, shortly after it had been discovered, that nothing good could come of it. It was ghastly. It stank. One cultured scientist, the Dutchman Cornelius de Pauw, put it thus: "Everything found there is degenerate or monstrous." A lot has happened since then, but some people have not noticed, or do not want to.
   It is, of course, perfectly reasonable to disagree with Bolton. It's perverse to argue - as some US commentators have - that anti-Americanism is always illegitimate. After all, plenty of Americans dislike Bolton with the same passion. It is also possible to exaggerate the extent of anti-Americanism. Living in the US for the past five years, I assumed the rest of the world was seething with passionate resentment at the way it's been treated.
   · Justin Webb is BBC Radio's chief Washington correspondent; Death to America - Anti-Americanism Examined is on Radio 4 next Monday at 8pm