I mean America and the American governments, regardless if the President is named Clinton, Bush or Obama. Clinton has set the first precedents for this official policy, Bush extremely expanded it and Obama failed to end it entirely. I mean the policy of extralegal detention, denial of fair trials for mere suspects, "harsh interrogations" that everybody in the world except of American Republicans consider torture.
Don't get me wrong, I like America. America has made great historical achievements, and also thanks to America among others, I can live in freedom today. But these policies are just wrong, and they fly in the face of every claim that was ever made from American side to defend freedom and human rights. You can't just give up your most basic values, even if that's just limited and temporary, just because you are afraid and they have become inconvenient. The little extra security is not worth it, either you respect these values or you aren't free. Risk is the price of freedom.
Because of these policies that were excessively expanded in the Patriot Act, I think Bush is not a President that deserves any credit, he has played away any moral credit he ever had, and severely damaged America in the process. I hoped for a change under Obama, but except for a few cosmetic changes, this "change" did not take place. And the hypocrites who now go on the streets against Obama are just too greedy to pay taxes, they don't even care about these blatant human right violations, they don't even know what "big government" really is. It's sad, really.
Many people in my country have very recent vivid first-hand memories of a "big government" that is not just a little inconvenient, because taxes are too high -- no, they remember a government so big that it would imprison people at free will, deny them fair trials and torture them. That's what socialism is, that's what tyranny is, that's what "big government" is.
If you want to know why especially Bush and the Republicans are so unpopular in Europe, look at this. That's why. They remind us too much of our experience with socialism.