I disagree that the article painted the issue as a national issue. To the contrary, this is the rare occasion that I see a recognition on the part of Europeans that the US is composed of 50 states, and that making conclusions about the EU based only upon information from Romania, Croatia and Poland is probably ill-advised. It recognizes that states like California are big (being more populous than all of of Canada). And it recognizes what many Americans already know: the South is America's Eastern Europe.
