Rich:
It just so happened that I was reading an article on the Ardennas, and there was a quote directly on this. The view was that it would be more succesful to attack the Americans than the ENGLISH, since the English were doggedly stubborn once dug in. Two things on top of that, - Hitler had that opinion, and the geographical condition also favoured it.
Bear in mind that Hitler said that a democratical nation could not muster a tough army. (close enough)
Anyway, it was the last proper Axis offence, and failed.
Now, you had the Atlantic between you and the Nazis, true enough. Not just the Atlantic though, you also had the BRITISH between you and the Nazis. Just a minute, were the Nazis direct enemies of the USA? Not exactly so much. There were indeed many Hitler supporters, although many of those were rather pro-German than the whole cake (which they would not have known), - that is somewhat understandable.
Not all americans know for instance that the lend-lease deal to the British (Where Roosevelt used the "firehose vs the neighbours fire" as a paralell to the situation in Europe) was accepted by just a margin. It almost flushed, and would have done so without the push from the white house.
Today, one runs across short-read posters however, who think the USA jumped into WW2 to save Europe and hardly ever lost a fight defending those submittive sissies, and this is bound to make people grind their teeth a bit.
The USA didn't get invaded by a far superior force, yet got kicked out of a big part of the globe, and the turnpoint was by a margin. But there was no experience of being under the heel of a cruel state, so I think that some here would be better of looking a little more at things in perspective.
Say the USA was a 4 Million nation, living in one state, , being bullied by the Canadians across the lakes counting 20 to 1, yet fighting for 6 weeks plus....somehow I do not see an Alamo there....
And what was Alamo anyway. Lost...