I am also American and do not find your criticism harsh. In fact, a not insignificant number of Americans could not find Norway on a map much less have any clue regarding international opinion. What should frighten europeans is that the anti-science agenda being pushed in the US is being exported to europe i.e. the director of a major university microbiology department in Germany is an ID creationist advocate. These people (in both the US and beyond) push an ideology that says you don't have to actually know anything, collect any facts, or even construct a testable hypothesis in order to make claims comparable to the rigorous process used to develope scientific hypotheses or theories. Whatever you want to believe is just as valid as a scientific theory.
It is an attractive feel good proposition. It allows people to remain completely ignorant yet exaggerate their knowledge way beyond their competence while simultaneously demonizing those who actually struggle to become scientists as "just people with a different opinions" or "elitists". As to the other part of your questions about international opinion, there is almost as much political and historical ignorance as there is scientific ignorance. Couple that with a completely disfunctional news media in the US and your average person who is not actively interested in the world beyond their kitchen table is likely unaware of international opinion.
Having said all this, the european scientific model is also poor for the most part in my experience. It is so fragmented and caters to local or national interests that the best and brightest of Europe often go to the better funded and more dynamic research institutes in the US. Ask anyone working in science whether it is easier to get a professorship or industry research job (much less startup a company) in Europe or the US and I am willing to bet they will say the US. So while the general US public is astoundingly poorly informed, the "elite" in research are top notch. Like everything in the US, the differences are extreme between the haves and have nots.
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