No, we never had a perfect reputation. Pretty damned close in the months after 9/11, though. But it has never been (and isn't yet) so bad that it couldn't get screwed up more.

For example, we were assumed to be a theoreticaly non-aggressor nation, invading only after establishing a reasonably convincing argument that we were opposing an act of overt aggression, even if we did have to fake it sometimes. I do know enough 20'th C. US history to know Iraq wasn't an innovation in action. But it was an innovation in words, and words do mean something.

On the world stage, Clinton had a fairly good reputation. So did George I. Not as particularly moral or generous or good-hearted individuals, but as negotiators with whom one could make a profitable deal. Remember how George I's coalitions used to involve big countries that could actualy send troops? I never was much of a fan of the guy, but he was good at foreign policy. He knew what the hell he was doing. George II on the other hand has made it known he isn't making any real deals. This is how it's going to be, take it or leave it. He won't be building any real coalitions. Sure, he's willing to throw some cash around and make some concessions on minor stuff, so he can get Mexico to not oppose too much, and Spain and Camaroon to do a little cheerleading. GB doen't count - if Bush announced he was taking down the Archbishop of Canturbury because English people talk funny, Tony Blair would go before the UN and point out "see? I'm doing it right now!" and then send troops to attack themselves.

You can say it doesn't matter - those other countries never sent all that many troops anyway. But it does - George II will never have the options of economic sanctions or weapons blockades and will have to march our troops all over hell and back because there will continue be so many countries they can't cross.

Bombing the WTC was never a very good indication of world opinion. Rather the opposite - the WTC represented more than just the US. It represented global commercialism of which the US is the flagship, not the fleet. The better the US was doing with the fleet, the worse the playa-haytas wanted to blow it up.

Polls have rather consistently shown that a majority (not an overwhelming majority as the media has painted it - more in the 60% range than the 90% range) of US citizens are in favor of the invasion of Iraq, while a substantial majority of pretty much everybody else, the English included, are rather strongly opposed.