Mutiny

Today's full frontal broadside (yeah well, whatever - it sounds good and it stays) against the economic policies of the Zapatero government in the weekly business supplement of this morning's El País came with the added extra, at least for that newspaper, of an open 'comments' section. At this moment (4:50 PM), 369 readers have voiced their opinions, and the number seems to continue to increment at a rate of about one every two minutes. And it is not a pretty sight.

Having read through several pages of these generally well expressed remarks, the closest we can find to actual support from the readers of the daily that since its inception at the hands of Juan Luís Cebrián (this writer's grandfather's godson, by all accounts*) in 1976 has been the right hand of the dominant PSOE version of Spanish socialism - are the occasional remarks that the 'other guys' are worse. We all know the term, 'swing voter'. Right?

The lead article - first of many of the same style - is entitled 'Rudderless'** (the link's at the top of the page) and comprises a nearly four page litany of the ineffective measures and conflicting and ever-changing policies that have characterized the socialists' crisis leadership. The picture at the top, showing Zapatero steering the ship of state through waters infested by three sharks named 'Deficit', 'Unemployment' and 'GDP', occupies 80% of the front page of the supplement.

We've said it before and we continue to believe that he will not finish out his term. That his latest salvo directed at the beast consists of a 'guarantee' that pension payments will continue to increase, recession, deflation and fiscal deficit notwithstanding, has us hoping that this takes place sooner than later.

*That our cousins, cripto-fascists and Franco-piners that they all are, would even admit this leads us to believe that it is true.

**For readers not fluent in Spanish, with some luck a version of this may be incuded in an upcoming edition of the International Herald Tribune.

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