By ROGER COHEN
BERLIN, May 6 - Before becoming president, George W. Bush seemed acutely aware of the need for a country as powerful as the United States to show restraint. "If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us," he said. "If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."
The words appear to have been forgotten. A torrent of hostile articles in Europe has greeted Mr. Bush's first three months in office. Their chief theme has been the arrogance of what the German weekly Der Spiegel recently called "the snarling, ugly Americans."
On its Web site, the respected Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung lists seven articles summing up the themes of Mr. Bush's first 100 days. They are not unrepresentative of widespread European views.
The titles include: "Selling Weapons to Taiwan: Bush Throws His Weight Around in the Pacific"; "North Korea: Bush Irritates the Asians"; "World Court: No Support From United States"; "Iraq: Bombing Instead of Diplomacy"; and "Climate Agreement: The United States Abandons the Kyoto Protocol."
There can be little doubt that it was irritation over those and other issues that lay behind the vote last week that ousted the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Commission for the first time, while leaving countries like Algeria and Libya as elected members.
Speaking in Berlin today, Richard C. Holbrooke, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, described the administration's foreign policy as "unsmooth" and the handling of environmental issues as "disastrous." But he noted that the Bush team is still taking shape and that transitions always involve difficulties.
Certainly, Mr. Bush's predecessor had problems. In their current irritation, European officials appear to have forgotten that the president whose absence they now seem to rue - Bill Clinton - infuriated them in his first year in office by appearing to pay scant attention to the Continent, dithering over Bosnia, and long delaying his first visit.
Those officials, and particularly the French, also seem inclined to overlook the fact that discomfort or irritation with the extent of post-cold- war American power - military, political, economic and cultural - has been running high for some time.
Well before Mr. Bush's arrival in office, France began referring to the United States as a "hyper-power." Other countries, from Russia to China, have also made much of the need for "counterbalances" to American power. In this sense, any missteps by the Republican administration have provided ammunition for a gun already partly loaded.
But Mr. Bush's apparent insensitivity to European concerns on a broad range of issues - he has never visited London or Paris or Berlin - has clearly opened the way for a season of America bashing.
Celebrating the record number of votes - 52 of a possible 53 - won by France in the election that ousted the United States, Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador to the United Nations, attributed his country's success to a French foreign policy "founded on dialogue and respect."
The message was clear: the embarrassing snub to the United States could be attributed to a seeming absence of "dialogue and respect" in the Bush administration's approach to the outside world.
In their glee at America's discomfort in the vote, the Chinese used language similar to that used by the French. The ousting, for China, showed that the United States had "undermined the atmosphere for dialogue."
The time has arrived for the United States "to enter into dialogue on equal footing with other countries, rich or poor, strong or weak" and to stop using "human rights issues as a tool to pursue its power politics and hegemonism," China said.
Instructions from China on human rights seem certain to raise as many eyebrows in Washington as French tips on diplomacy do. But there is little doubt that Mr. Bush's generally more confrontational stance on Russia and China, his apparently slow learning curve on how much the environment matters to Europeans and his lukewarm support for South Korea's so-called sunshine policy for improving relations with the North have reinforced a European sense that the United States is a power more inclined than before to ride roughshod over its allies.
When Michael Steiner, the chief diplomatic aide to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany, visited Washington earlier this year, he was surprised to find Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, telling him that he must be aware that the only way to get results from the Russians was to be tough with them.
That was one small example of the ways in which the Bush administration seems to be out of step in its thinking with a European Union disinclined to reopen divisions on the Continent and generally more concerned about the quality of food and the environment than possible security threats from Moscow or North Korea.
But Karl Kaiser, a German foreign policy analyst, said he thought that awareness of those differences was growing in the Bush administration and he questioned whether there was any deep justification for European anxieties.
He noted that Mr. Bush's recent policy speech on a possible missile defense shield was marked by extreme sensitivity to allied and Russian concerns. The antimissile project, Mr. Kaiser went on, is no longer "national" but intended to help all friendly countries; it will be built only after thorough consultation.
"Through this speech, Mr. Bush clearly differentiated himself from the Republican right wing and marked a return to the mainstream of multilateralism," Mr. Kaiser said.
How far such a "return" will go remains to be seen; currents of unilateralism seem far stronger in this administration than in any for some time. But it does seem clear that the speech reflected the concern of Colin L. Powell's State Department - the one office of the Bush administration that has been spared the harsh criticism reserved in Europe for the Pentagon and the White House.
One particular target of European criticism has been President Bush's policy toward China, and particularly his strong expressions of support for Taiwan that have been widely viewed as unnecessarily provocative. Europe, like Russia, has been concerned that America is throwing its weight around in a reckless manner.
But James R. Lilley, a former United States ambassador to China, said that while it was fair to say that, "Until you get your act together, you are going to cause some concern," the Europeans had overstated the dangers.
"The fact is China and Taiwan are moving together economically," he said. "The compelling fact of making money together undercuts the notion of estrangement." No American weapons sales to Taiwan would alter that reality, he said.
In the end, it may be style as much as substance that is causing the growing hostility to the United States. The revival of some cold war language under Mr. Bush and the emergence into clearer view of another America more concerned with itself and quite at ease with the death penalty has come as a shock to many outside the country.
In Britain the other day, The Guardian described America's position on the death penalty as "morally untenable." Of course, that position may be many things, but it is scarcely "untenable," just as America's human-rights record may have blemishes but is hardly comparable to that of Algeria.
That, however, is not the point. The fact is Mr. Bush has contrived to prove his own theory that arrogance provokes resentment for a country that, long before his arrival, was already the world's most conspicuous and convenient target.