Virtually all of that is half truth, if that. They are not now, nor have they ever been our "buddies". And that anti-French sentiment isn't confined to the right alone, never was. In fact just about every member of the greatest generation felt just that way about France. They haven't been much of a reliable ally and they showed up once to help us in the Revolutionary War (Yorktown), the Dutch did far more for us. Oh, and they SOLD us weapons. Not to mention they'd been killing us before and after.
The answer to the question is - no, they are not now, nor have ever been a close ally.
You have a funny definition of half-truth after that meagre display of historical comprehension.
The French, in addition to selling the American rebels supplies and weapons so cheap it bankrupted them, also sent their fleet and their army, several thousand soldiers, and basically won your War of Independence for you.
Even George Washington directly said, if not for the French military, the Patriot cause would have been lost.
Beyond that, France and the US fought together during the War of 1812, and again, if not for French assistance, the war would have been an even more disastrous defeat for the US.
Over the course of the century, the French consistently supported and fought for American interests, except for on hiccup around 1865 when the French took over Mexico. The international symbol of America, the Statue of Liberty, is Lady Liberty, who you may also know as Marianne, the symbol of France.
By the end of the century, the French and Americans were teaming up in China and Korea, and to a lesser extent in Liberia/North Africa. They even co-built the Panama Canal in stages.
Come the 20th century, the US, France and Britain were all realising that they were nearly identical politically and culturally, and fighting against each-other was a silly idea. In the First World War, the US backed up British and French interests in Europe and abroad, and explicitly stated to Mexico and other Latin American nations not to **** with French and British colonies in the New World.
I'm not sure where you've got your anecdotal evidence that 'every member of the greatest generation' hated the French, but I'm reasonably certain that's not true, considering how many Americans stayed there and
became French after the war, learning the French language and starting French families.
In all seriousness, France's unwillingness to blindly follow America and Britain into Iraq has caused many in the US to demonise them, which makes sense: When you **** up astronomically, you always look somewhere else to blame, and turn your ire on anyone smart enough not to make the same mistakes.
But seriously, I just don't understand all the anti-French sentiment, and I've never gotten a good reason for it beyond vague assertions that 'we've always hated them', which is patently, historically false.