Conservative Smearing of Opponents Grows

Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert yesterday leveled more unsubstantiated and false charges that the Spanish people "had a huge terrorist act within their country and they chose to change their government and to in a sense, appease terrorists." Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) similarly claimed, "The vote in Spain was a great victory for al Qaeda." On the same day, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admitted the rejection of Prime Minister Jose Aznar's Popular Party in the Spanish elections on Sunday "was a protest by the people against the handling of the terrorist event by the sitting government of Spain," – not a victory for the terrorists – and reports emerged that Bush administration officials may have been complicit in withholding evidence that Muslim extremists were behind the Madrid bombings.

• The Spanish elections show that leaders who deceive the people will face scrutiny at the polls. The facts are clear at this point. Prime Minister Aznar deceived his people in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings. His party lost the subsequent elections. There was no capitulation to a terrorist agenda; just an outpouring of democratic anger at a leader who misled the public=
• Conservatives should stop using the Madrid bombings to smear opponents and show some empathy for the Spanish people who are every bit as traumatized as Americans were in the aftermath of 9/11. The intention of conservative leaders like Hastert and Hyde is clear: anyone who dares to deviate from the current approach to terrorism will be smeared as an appeaser and supporter of terrorists. Instead of vitriol and blame, conservatives should consider a little empathy and support for the victims of terrorism in Spain.
• The administration must come clean about any information it was provided by Aznar's government and how much senior administration officials knew about the attacks prior to the Spanish elections. The public deserves to know the full extent of the Bush administration's involvement in any deceptions about the Madrid bombings prior to the Spanish elections.

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