Americans peek overseas in snippets, paying attention when something spectacular happens but forgetting that most of the time, the world is watching America.

Few are mindful of the impact our country’s press, culture, and movies have around the globe until they live abroad for any length of time. America is the only gorilla dominating the global airwaves, framing not only the news but also entertainment, press delivery, soap operas, reality shows, and, above all, global political discourse.

With that travels America’s influence and prestige — or lack thereof.

So when a celebrity like Rosie O’Donnell argues on American TV that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were an American government conspiracy and the British set up the abduction of their own sailors in the Persian Gulf last month, the world duly takes note.

Similarly, when an American radio personality like Don Imus insults Jews on a regular basis and refers to a group of young, bright, black female Rutgers University basketball players — with whom much of the multicolored world is likely to identify — as a bunch of whores with kinky hair, America’s enemies are glad to hear it and use it.

Black hip-hop stars who export music with lyrics that demean their women and their race feed the monster out there that really hates America.

These things appear on screens around the globe. Foreigners watch and listen to them and have no idea who is behind them but are told by Al-Jazeera, for example, that this is America. Al Qaeda, the genocidal Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, and other groups process such material to recruit new members and inveigh against America, the West, and modernity. They borrow the hateful messages to negate the higher ideals of Western democracy or free enterprise.

More damage is being done in cafés in Cairo, Dubai, London, Bangkok, and the Arab neighborhoods of Amsterdam and Brussels, where the TV screens are invariably stuck on CNN, Fox News, or Al-Jazeera — which is obsessed with pointing out what’s wrong with America.

Ms. O’Donnell may not be widely viewed in America as a serious commentator, and Mr. Imus is hardly known outside his coterie of self-obsessed politicians and press hacks. Still in TV-speak overseas, these two pass as representatives of America.

In a different venue altogether — but still in the same vein — this country’s functional parameters are not as messy as the bumbling speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, suggested with her visit to Syria and her offer of an alternative foreign policy to that of the American government.

When she donned a headscarf to shake the hand of President Al-Assad, widely viewed by the world community as the Arab world’s foremost killer, the only thing Ms. Pelosi projected to the world was her own flawed moral parameters.

Clearly, one of America’s biggest attractions is its unmatched freedom of speech and action. Restricting that is neither desirable nor possible.

Yet the mayhem caused by such irresponsible actions and speech seems to reflect a bigoted and delusional majority in America that is simply not there. Most Americans are reasonable, decent people.

If anything, these young black athletes — honor students who came from behind as a team in a basketball tournament in precisely the kind of “Rocky” story that makes this country so great — are an asset to be projected with tremendous pride around the world.

In the end, this too shall pass, as will the politicians and repulsive radio talk show hosts because, for all the talk, this country remains an irresistible magnet of hope.

Take a look at immigration statistics around the world: People are not lining up to go to Syria. By far the destination of choice is America.

U.S. Census Bureau figures show that between January 2000 and March 2002, 3.3 million immigrants arrived in America. In less than 50 years, the bureau projects that immigration will cause America’s population to increase to more than 400 million.

There are no reliable statistics on how many people are seeking to immigrate to Russia, China, or Mexico. But it would be safe to bet that there are not millions of them.