There was a poll a while back where they came up with the idea that 40% of Canadian youth think Americans are evil.  (Interestingly, it seems that's the only statistic from that poll that made it into the media.)  I had some thoughts about this while brushing my teeth:

1.  A lot of the interpretation depends on how the question was presented.  Was it multiple choice? ("Do you think Americans are a) cute and cuddly, b) a tasty breakfast treat, or c) evil?")  Was it "Do you agree with the following statement:  Americans are evil."  Was it incremental?  (Strongly agree, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, strongly disagree) Was it fill in the blank, just asking "What do you think of Americans?" and compiling the results?  There is a difference between agreeing with or choosing a statement that's presented to you, and pulling the idea of "evil" out of thin air.  For one thing, if "evil" was an option presented in the poll, that would certainly give the respondents the impression that it's an acceptable answer in this context, just like if you're talking to a friend in a private conversation at home and he says "My boss is an idiot, is yours?" it's acceptable to agree, but you don't go calling your boss an idiot to his face. Unfortunately, I can no longer find information about how the poll was conducted.

2.  I'm honestly not sure if this is from the same poll or not, but I seem to remember the phrase "a force for evil" kicking around and I have it mentally associated with this poll.  The few remaining articles I could find through Google News have the only the word "evil" in quotation marks.  If the phrase was, in fact, "a force for evil" or something similar, that implies that the actions are evil, not necessarily the people. It's analogous to a brilliant person doing a stupid thing - you can say "That's a stupid thing they did" without meaning that the person themselves is stupid.

3.  Didn't some US politician or another unilaterally declare a few various countries to be evil not so long ago, in front of one or two TV cameras?  Funny, that.

4.  Sometimes it seems like the US is becoming one of those countries where if you criticize the foreign policy it gets interpreted as hate speech against the people.  I'm not sure if this is because of the Weltanschauung of certain significant elements of American society, or if the people who make these accusations in the media I regularly consume are just really loud or what, but it just makes me want to ignore US news and politics.