It goes with being at or near the top in terms of perception. I tend to ignore "me too" criticism. If it wasn't the United States, it would be someone else. The more people you have willing to defend, the more other people will feel the need to attack.
Basically, in terms of world perception, the USA is in a kind of no-win situation.
I'll give you an example I noticed several years ago. I remember an interview on Nightline with an official from the UK saying that the US had no business with a military installation there and that Europe is for Europeans. It featured lots of pictures of people protesting and clips of other officials with the same message. In that very same week, Nightline had another show with European officials pretty much condemning the US for not living up to its role as a "world leader" and committing more troops to Eastern Europe. Of course, there were a lot of other officials saying the same thing.
It's almost like, yeah, OK, whatever.
