Spain, Con't.

The Telegraph leader is titled Euro Isolationism is Triumphant. (Note to self: use "Euro-isolationism" in conversation three times this week.) Money quote: "Spaniards died in industrial quantities, and the first instinct of many voters was to take it out on their government. If terrorism has succeeded there, where will be next?"

Answer: England, before the next general election. That's the handwriting on the wall, mates.


Lileks says he's saving himself on Spain for his Newhouse column (where does that thing run, btw? We need to link to it.). But he nonetheless puts things with characteristic concision: "...you can take the nation out of old Europe, but you can't take the old Europe out of the nation." And, he observes, "At least Spain knows what's expected of them now. If they remove the Socialists from power some day, they can expect a few bombs here and there to remind them of their place."

But he spends most of his time dissecting Loony Tunes: Back in Action. Whatever.

The brilliant David Warren hasn't had a column posted since the vote, but he read the tea leaves before it happened sufficiently well to be prophetic.

Spain's test will be completed in the election itself, where dealing with terrorism both domestically and internationally has been the major campaign issue. The government of the retiring prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, firmly allied with President Bush's "coalition of the willing" in Iraq and elsewhere, and dead-set against concessions to Basque and Catalonian separatists at home, must win decisively. The Socialist opposition, led by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, which has played childish rhetorical games comparing Aznar to Franco, and associating the defence of civilization itself with "fascism", deserves the punishment of electoral humiliation. Spain must show old Europe that it has not gone soft in the head.

Whoops! Too late.