In a particularly good episode of the particularly good US remake of The Office, Pam (American for Dawn) happens upon her boss Michael Scott (American for David Brent), standing in his office, naked. Michael affects glorious indignation and reaches for a defence that is very much of the American zeitgeist: "European offices are naked all the time."

Ah Europe! So louche! So permissive! So je ne sais quoi! No, really – je ne sais quoi the hell Europe is, because it seems to be many things to America, none of them particularly good. But it is useful, because should you find yourself in America and you wish to describe something as bad but don't quite have an argument to explain its badness, then you can just call it European". This is surely a more useful hint to tourists than to ask for "the bathroom" instead of "the toilet".

It is also a slight shift from how "European" was used in the Bush years, when it meant something a bit fey, a bit pretentious, and a bit unsupportive of Bush. Now, European means something even worse. But what, precisely? Let's investigate.

The Amanda Knox case – truly, a Henry James story gone very, very wrong – brought out all sorts of horrified references to "Europe." CBS News legal expert Lisa Bloom partly blamed Knox's conviction on "tabloid accounts throughout Europe" and expressed outrage over the trial from "an American point of view." Now, one can say much about the fairness or otherwise of this case. But making it into an "upright America versus dodgy foreigners" issue is rarely a successful tactic, as Roman Polanski could testify, and we will return to that foreigner in a tick, or as we Americans say, in a sec.

Earlier this year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell accused President Obama of "an audacious effort to Europeanise the country". Sadly, he did not mean that Obama was building an Eiffel Tower in Wichita and encouraging the population to develop a fondness for Robbie Williams, but rather that he was "governing from the left".

The healthcare issue is this year's most well-known, or at least most dragged out "European" threat to America, and as Jill Lepore wrote in last week's New Yorker, this is not new. When universal healthcare was proposed in 1916, critics wailed that it was "made in Germany", and it was duly rejected. Germany is no longer the evil spectre it was then, but threats of dentist-deprived bad teeth (so European!) are. It is a mystery, though, how Americans cope when they visit "Europe", what with all the dead bodies lying in the streets.

It's not just Americans who have defined the term "European". The French made the Polanski case into an issue of permissive Europe (or, at least, Europe minus Switzerland) versus prudish America. This has not exactly worked to the director's benefit. Ironically, it has worked to America's benefit, allowing American news networks to frequently ignore support for Polanski in their own country, referring to Polanski's supporters as "European film-makers". This group includes the European likes of Harvey Weinstein, Wes Anderson and Whoopi Goldberg.

Nor is this just about news stories. Paul Auster is repeatedly described as an author with a "European sensibility", suggesting that American book reviewers see "European" as meaning "repetitive and narcissistic, with a particular appeal to self-important male undergraduates." Craig Kennedy, in the Globalist, described Obama favourably as "'European' – not by birth, but by sensibility" (make that "not by birth" point very, very clear, Craig). Which would make Tony Blair, presumably, American.

So to recap, to be "European" is to be a jailer of American innocents, killer of grannies, supporter of statutory rapists, author of boring books, and the president. Well, at least Michael Scott got the naked offices right.

We got another one! That was not, sadly, quite the headline in the Jewish Journal announcing Chelsea Clinton's upcoming marriage to Marc Mezvinsky, but it wasn't far off: "Chelsea Clinton engaged to Marc Mezvinsky, a Jew." Did you get the point? He's Jewish! Hey, did I mention he's JEWISH????!!!

The recent years have been good to us Jews in terms of recruitment by marital alliances. We got a Trump (Ivanka), a Gore (Karenna), almost certainly an imminent Bush (Lauren, long-term girlfriend of David-son-of-Ralph Lauren), and we nearly got Lindsay Lohan (thanks to ex-girlfriend Samantha Ronson) – although, frankly, who hasn't almost got Lindsay at one point?

But it's Chelsea with whom I would particularly like to share a pew and a phonetically written Hebrew prayer book. I've always liked Chelsea and perhaps that's because I could sense her innate Jew-ness: she has smart yet often embarrassing parents; she is a hard worker; and she has suffered the indignities of difficult hair. Chelsea, welcome home.

But let's look back at our alpha – sorry, aleph – list: all women, marrying our boys. I partly blame Judd Apatow for the recent slew. As much as I love the Apatow oeuvre, it can grate on a Jewess's nerves that the happy ending is often "Jewish schmuck gets hot shiksa." Oy vay!

But before I start ripping up my hupa, US men's magazine Details is here to fight my corner with its article, The Rise of the Hot Jewish Girl. Apparently, we Jewesses are the "ethnic fetish du jour", despite our "frigidity, whininess and big hair." "There can be something creepy about wanting to dominate a Jewish chick," the writer, Christopher Noxon, admits furtively. Indeed there can, Christopher, when it's you making the offer. Gosh, won't we miss the men's magazine industry when it finally dies, ooh, next year?