Lack of originality is not the most compelling criticism of Alterman's piece, except perhaps for the lit-crit crowd.
I would point to its internal contradiction. Alterman cites poll results to argue that views of the American and European publics do not differ that much, and then goes on to say that Eurpean political center of gravity is as much to the left as the American one - to the right, and denounces Bushies for their fundamentalism and moral-self righteousness. This is a contraditon, unless one wants to make an untenable assumption that the US political regime has been imposes by force, against popular will.
A more reasonable proposition is that American population is much more petit bourgeois - which is a mixture of bigotry cheap religiosity, conventionalism spiced with individualism, ethnocentrism, self-righteousness, philistinism and narrowness of mind - than Europeans, and this petit bourgeois weltanschauung is perfectly reflected in the American politics, especially of this administration.
In other words, European and American populations are very much different and that is reflected in the politics. Opinion polls, on the other hand, are like standardized test - they reflect how well people take the test rather than what their actual capablities or opinions are. Alterman wants us to believe otherwise - that polls give us true portraits of US and European societies, whereas politics somehow operate independently of popular expectations and preferences. That might be true of autocratic states, but not about Europe or the US.
Wojtek