[Tifone]

1) The wisecrack is from an european-liberal point of view. As Aezeal already pointed out, we have very different issues than the US. For many EU nations, many of your issues (death penalty and creationism above the others) are totally non-issues, and an USA VP with those opinions on those issues is quite scary for many, known your influence on the world. Not that it would force anyone here to teach even creationism in science classes i.e. of course, but still...

2) We aren't as lucky as you to have big deserts and plains to stock the dangerous nuclear wastes. For us, having nuclear power stations would mean pretty much to build radioactive scrap-yards near towns and have the inhabitants get crazy on that, evenly. We already have some big problems for the few nuclear wastes we already have to dispose of... ehm, even on the normal ones to be fair. Also there is the big scar of Chernobyl still in many people's minds. That was a primitive unefficient power station of course, but tell that to whoever has seen the photos of the babies born in the surrounding areas even many years after...