Thomas Friedman's "big picture" analysis of the Spanish vote is awfully convenient: he expands the frame just far enough in the direction that he wants it to go. Ignoring the "little pictures" in favor of a convenient single cause is bad logic.

Sure, terrorists can claim that the Spanish vote was a victory. That doesn't make them, or Friedman, right. The terrorists were not going to give up if the Spanish people voted to retain their lying, unrepresentative government. No, they were going to bomb something else, in Spain or elsewhere. The terrorists are not political hacks: they are implacable murderers who work on their own timetable and for their own reasons, and only by dealing with them directly, instead of getting sidetracked with "with us or against us" squabbles, will the problem of terrorism abate.

Jonathan Dresner, Ph.D.