And the winner is . . . Gwyneth Paltrow for best actress in "How to Be A Dishonest Expat." She was so good that it didn't look like acting at all! This woman is backpedaling faster than a kid on a pedal-boat on a pond. The articles have been many on the subject, but here's the quote from the recent Portuguese article in the weekend supplement of the daily paper Diario de Noticias:

"I love the English lifestyle, it's not as capitalistic as America. People don't talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner . . . I like living here because I don't fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more civilized and intelligent than the Americans."

Um, honey, don't try to claim how much you love America and are proud to be an American. You said the same thing in nearly the same words several years ago in The Guardian:

"I love the English way, which is not as capitalistic as it is in America. People don't talk about work and money; they talk about interesting things at dinner parties. I like living here because I don't tap into the the bad side of American psychology, which is 'I'm not achieving enough, I'm not making enough, I'm not at the top of the pile."

It sounds like a canned political speech geared to make friends among the America-hating Euros, that you never thought would make it back stateside. Welcome to the global world of the internet. Of course your remarks made it back home, and of course they didn't go over well.

Think about the company you kept in Hollywood. What do you expect? Of course it's shallow--it's Hollywood! But so are you, if you believe it's representative of America. You are also shallow if you buy into the stereotype of the rest of America being all about shotguns and pickups. Sure, that element exists, but you never sat down to dinner with any of them. That element also exists in England, but you never ate dinner with any yobs there either, so your perspective is just a wee bit skewed.

Save your sob story about being misquoted, and having a poor command of Spanish. Your command of the English language must be equally poor if the Guardian also got it wrong a few years back. You can't claim the folks at the Guardian don't speak English.

Here's the sad thing, Gwynnie: I don't think you're all that dumb. I really don't. But you've got to stop shoving your own feet in your mouth, and stop making blanket statements about your home country based on European stereotypes of America and your own severely warped experience here, just because you think it will go over well with your audience. It comes back to bite you in the butt. If you haven't discovered that by now, maybe you aren't as smart as I suspect.