I hear that Spanish voters have ruined it for the rest of us. Namely, they had the gall to vote for the Socialists after they decided that not being involved with us would get fewer trains blown up in their country. Perhaps this is the first time that a bunch of people voting for something they want, and then getting it, is labeled as a threat to democracies everywhere.

Here's the logic that showed up in the New York Times today: Regardless of the policy, doing anything related to what David Brooks imagines terrorists might want sounds the death knell for Mom and apple pie. Spaniards are "appeasing" terrorists because they decided, on the eve of the election, that the war was a bigger issue than prosperity. (The previous ruling party, The Popular Party, had been credited with raising the standard of living in Spain over the past 10 years. They also supported the Iraq war against the wishes of 90 percent of Spaniards.)

Brooks goes on to say that this illustrates the differences between Americans and Europeans - namely, we like to fight terrorists and they like to knock off work around 1 and treat Al Qaeda to a nice three-course lunch. "If a terrorist group attacked the U.S. three days before an election, does anyone doubt that the American electorate would rally behind the president or at least the most aggressively antiterror party?," he writes. Gee, Dave, my picture's not on the New York Times' web site, but couldn't someone say that if Americans responded to a November attack by voting a certain way that we had had our votes influenced by terrorists? Does anyone remember Rudy G's request to be mayor for an extra month? What about campaign ads with pictures of Sen. Max Cleland next to Osama and Saddham? Could these ideas have had anything to do with using terrorism to influence voting? Never. That's downright antidemocratic.

If we use Brooks' logic, we need to figure out what terrorists want on a whole bunch of issues - single payer health care, school vouchers, wars and stuff, privatizing social security, saving whales - and then compare all that to whatever the candidates say. I don't care if we wind up with a Lyndon Larouche / George Lincoln Rockwell team in the White House, as long as they make terrorists angry then we'd need to vote for them. Or something. Maybe if we only vote for people who terrorists have never heard of. We could take some of the better behaved ones from Gitmo and put them in a focus group.

Because, see, otherwise terrorists can influence elections. And the next thing you know, people will be using footage of the Twin Towers coming down in campaign ads.