Anyone observing America from the outside will be as confused as ever this week.

Three Britons are extradited to America to answer charges about the collapse of the US energy firm Enron.

Yet George Bush senior, former president and father of current president George W Bush, is chief mourner at the funeral of Kenneth Lay, the chief crook in the Enron saga. The priest at the service compared Lay to Martin Luther and Jesus Christ.

Can anyone wonder why Europeans can’t understand America?