The actor George Clooney, responding to a question from a London Observer reporter about America's response to the September 11 attacks, reported on msnbc.com, November 19, 2002:

We live on an island. A giant big f***ing island. We don't understand that people actually get mad at us. We still think of ourselves in terms of World War II. It's not uncommon for us to say to France, "Hey, you'd still be speaking German if it wasn't for us." The problem is the world has changed, and our involvement in these tiny little places is different than it was in 1941. It was a lot clearer then. We were attacked.

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