[quidnunc]

BikerNYC wrote: (Yes, the Spanish may have also resented that their government first tried to blame its Basque separatists for the bombings.) Yes, I think this was a major factor. What were the Spanish to do? Vote for a government they didn't want just to send a message to the terrorists? Wouldn't that, too, be letting the terrorists control the outcome of the election?

Nonsense!

Initially almost everyone in Spain believed it was thhe work of ETA, but before the election the suspicion has shifted to al Qaeda.

The fact, pure and simple, is that spaniards panicked and voted for appeasement.

The argument that the Spaniards were punishing a government which lied to them is just a fig leaf to cover Spanish appeasement.

[BikerNYC]

I just don't think it is that simple. First of all, the socialists got only 43% of the vote, hadly supporting a claim that "Spaniards panicked and voted for appeasement." Moreover, there was a large percentage of the people who opposed the war all along, and it would be ridiculous to expect them to turn around and vote for the very government which brought the country into a war they didn't want to get into in the first place.

A year ago, people were claiming that the Spaniards were the greatest people in all of Europe. Now, because they didn't go our way this time, they are cowards and appeasers. Democracy can be a bitch, but if a majority of the people never wanted to go to war in Iraq in the first place, it is not surprising that the government which led them that way got its payback.

I find ridiculous the idea that, because there was a bombing, the people should have supported the government at all costs. With that kind of reasoning, our worry should not be with the Dems, but with those in power who might seek to apply that rule in this country.