Spanish election

The socialists would have won the Spanish election without the boost given them by the government's mishandling of the Madrid train bombings. The Madrid correspondent of the respected German weekly Die Zeit reported that while polls may be taken in Spain at any time up to an election, the results may not be made public in the two weeks prior to an election. Polls taken in Spain during those crucial two weeks, she wrote, showed that the socialists were steadily gaining on the government. While they undoubtedly got a push from the aftermath of the bombings, they would have taken over the government without it.

Professor B's note: The point being that you'd be unlikely to know this if you relied solely on the USA's corporate media. They have generally failed to report that the Spanish people were going to kick out Aznar's party anyway, for disregarding the popular will by supporting the US invasion of Iraq; they would have us think that the catastrophe and its scandalous mishandling were the sole causes of a stunning upset victory, which is just plain false. Good thing my dad reads German.