Burying the Followup

It took a while for the news to reach these shores, but Spanish voters in the Galicia region have turned out the Popular Party. The reason this item, normally trivial to American readers, might have garnered some journalistic oxygen is that we were assured by so many suddenly learned authorities on the Spanish electorate just last year that the defeat of the very same party in national elections was a sad signal that said electorate had gone Old Europe and voted out its pro-Iraq War leadership to appease the terrorists who bombed the Madrid train station days earlier.

Someone, anyone, in the American media might have wanted to wander back to Spain, where several subsequent regional elections have shown the same result, a defeat for the Popular Party. Aside from the fact that the party leadership might be considering a name change, are we to assume that the regional voters are still occupied with the task of appeasing the terrorists? Or would a return to the subject indicate that the earlier consensus analysis was embarassingly off-base?