Spain legalizes gay marriage!

Dianne-- That's not at all what I had heard at the time, and it wasn't from either of those sources. I don't subscribe to the "CNN is a conservative propaganda machine for the Bush administration" club.

"According to the polls published on March 7, the last day polls could be published under Spanish law, the Socialists trailed Aznar's Popular Party by four percentage points (42%-38%). While the gap between the two parties was narrowing, it seems highly unlikely that the Socialists would have managed to win a 44%-38% victory just a week later had it not been for the attacks. With emotions riding high, voter turnout rose to 77% of Spain's 35 million eligible voters (compared with just 55% in the elections four years ago), and most of the new voters, including 2 million first-time voters, appear to have voted for the Socialists."

And this source is about as opposite as GWB as you can get:
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/?articleid=2136
"On Sunday, the governing Popular Party (PP) lost 35 seats in Congress and its absolute majority. To judge by the opinion polls conducted prior to the elections, the center-right party would not have suffered defeat without Thursday's rail blasts and carnage in Madrid."

If there's a way to completely discredit information like this, I'd be interested in seeing it.

The blanket statement politely labeling me ignorant, without mentioning any specific topics and giving me a chance to respond in turn, is disappointing, by the way...

Well, speaking as the local here, it would have greatly surprised me if Aznar won another election. He sided with Bush against the explicit wishes of his people, he completely ignored the Galician oil spill, he nearly caused a war with Morocco over some deserted rock of an island called Perejil, and more importantly, he lied to his people.
It's not so much the attacks as the fact that he tried to blame it on ETA, to cover his ass for backing Bush, when everyone knew it had been Al Qaeda.
People really hated him... on both sides of the peninsula.

Well, I think the catch is that the Iraq war and terrorism was not a major issue before the attacks. (This would allow Aznar to be re-elected even though he supported the Iraq war.) Also, Spain's contributions weren't very significant, so I guess most people probably didn't care so much.

But it's not the popluarity of the Iraq war I'm looking at, it's the fact that (unless there is contrary information which I have yet to see) every mention of any kind of poll (as close you can get to fact) shows Aznar with a lead, which was reversed entirely for the election. You also have the fact that the voter turnout, I believe, was very high--it's not a jump of faith to blame that on the bombings.

The supposed "90% against the war" statistic (although I've heard mention of a Telegraph poll that showed 48% still supportive of the liberation with 43% against, not sure if true) couldn't have meant much-- if that issue was so big, we wouldn't have seen such close polls before the election. So I guess it became much bigger of an issue after the attacks--and thus the election was influenced by the attacks.

Religion is a hammer.

Used judiciously and gently, it can pry apart the slats of everyday reality and offer a glimpse of the divine.

It can be used to build a framework for a community, where the individual components work together to create something greater than the sum of the parts.

Or it can be used as a blunt implement for smashing in skulls.

It's all in the hands that hold the hammer.

http://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living/1120560971310220.xml&coll=2

This is the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Well I do of course, (along with many other thoughtful intelligfent people), but it doesnt make much difference to this argument.

It appears that I am... uh.. wrong.
Or at least guilty of a little hyperbole.
Here is my quote, below.
I am kind of busy at work so I only have one quick one, and it does not completely discredit yours.

The sources are Time magazine and the Washington post here. What I find interesing is the figures are pretty much the same in all articles, but the "spin" or interpretation varies from your end of the spectrum to mine. I dont think anything I have read invalidates my point that the Socialists would have likely won anyway, several journalists point that out quite convincingly IMO. My description of it in superlative terms was a bit over the top for sure.

My real central thought on this that I was trying to get across (perhaps not clearly laid out though), was it was the "conservative" former leader that lost the election and he lost it because of his support for the Iraq war.

To suport an illegal war, even though the people of your own country do not want you to is the height of foolishness. To then turn around and try to decieve people into thinking it was basque terrorists just to try to get the vote is worse, and the people saw through it.
He lost the election, his actions, his words, not any other.

That was my point. The media constantly spinning it as... "a good man who faced defeat because of the terrorists," is what angers me, as it is far from the truth of the matter.



I did not intend this:
To be recieved that way, and I apologise if I hurt your feelings.
We all do that from time to time IMO but it was not intentional on my part.
It was not intended as a "veiled barb", or a personal thing.
I was trying to say what I wanted to say, but not be unkind about saying it.

Anyway, here is a case of me doing exactly what I was accusing you of, and I am glad you caught me on it now that I think about it.

I feel a bit foolish of course, and it doesn't change my opinion that you (and perhaps all of us), are all guilty of this from time to time. But everyone could probably benefit from being reminded of their falibility from time to time.

I understand... I still see the Spanish election differently, but no hard feelings of course. I have been flat out wrong on these forums on occassion but (to the best of my knowledge) I've always taken back anything that I later found to be incorrect or not as obvious as I originally thought. (Of course it's possible you saw the wrong and never saw the correction.) But it's good to see that others can do the same on occassion. It happens very very rarely for some reason.