Spain’s Conservatives Back McCain’s ‘Snub’ of President Zapatero: El Plural, Spain

Controversy has broken out in Spain over an interview John McCain did on Wednesday, during which the Republican presidential nominee appeared to imply that Spain – a fellow member of NATO – is not a U.S. ally. While Americans are still trying to figure out whether John McCain even knows who Spain’s President is – let alone what continent his country is in – Spain’s right-wing parties are coming under fire for appearing to agree with McCain’s apparent snub of their nation’s leader.

Gerardo Rivas writes for Spain’s left-wing daily El Plural:

“The statement by Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, John McCain – in which he sidesteps committing to a meeting with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the event that he wins the election – has provoked a reaction on our Right which shows only too well, that great patriotic feeling that the right-wing likes to put on display, that it flashes over and over again, and that it even claims to have a monopoly on.

“Always ready at a moment’s notice to wrap itself in the flag of our nation and sing the national anthem – it turns out that when one really has to defend the dignity of the motherland, this Right of ours goes over to the “enemy” – that’s in quotes – it crouches beneath its “great leader” – even if he isn’t yet the leader – and without mercy attacks the President of our nation when he, and his country, have been, at a minimum, the victims of contempt.”

By Gerardo Rivas

Translated By Douglas Myers Rasmussen

September 18, 2008

Spain – El Plural – Original Article (Spanish)

The statement by Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, John McCain – in which he sidesteps committing to a meeting with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the event that he wins the election – has provoked a reaction on our Right which shows only too well, that great patriotic feeling that the right-wing likes to put on display, that it flashes over and over again, and that it even claims to have a monopoly on.

Always ready at a moment’s notice to wrap itself in the flag of our nation and sing the national anthem – albeit in an un-democratic way by using those symbols that are exclusively theirs, it turns out that when one really has to defend the dignity of the motherland, this Right of ours goes over to the “enemy” – that’s in quotes – it crouches beneath its “great leader” – even if he isn’t yet the leader – and without mercy attacks the President of our nation when he, and his country, have been, at a minimum, the victims of contempt.

[Editor's Note: When mentioning the Spanish right's "symbols that are exclusively theirs," the author is undoubtedly referring to General Francisco Franco, who was a Hitler ally and who ruled Spain with an iron fist from 1939 to 1975. Franco was a member of the right-wing Partido Popular. Today, the PP has moderated its positions and is a mainstream political party, having held power most recently under José María Aznar, who lost to the Socialist Zapetaro in 2005 after an al-Qaeda terrorist attack on a train in Madrid that killed hundreds of people. After taking power, Zapetaro decided to pull all of Spain's troops from Iraq - resulting in a significant cooling of relations between the Bush and Zapetero governments. This is at the heart of this most recent controversy involving McCain].

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along woth continuing translated foreign and English-language press coverage of the U.S. presidential election.