Thinking is hard. A year ago, when we on the anti-war side tried to explain that Saddam wasn't a jihadist, jihadists didn't like him, but a war to overthrow him might inflame them, all over America reporters' heads began to hurt. It was confusing! Much simpler to parrot the Bush administration's line: Muslim + bad = 9/11.

This line was never effectively debunked in America. Instead, a new set of circumstances arose: Iraq wasn't functioning and Americans there were dying. That was easy to comprehend. It didn't make reporters' heads hurt. That's why coverage of Iraq in the U.S. was able to turn skeptical.

But now the Spanish have voted out a Bush ally, saying, among other things, the same complex, confusing things war opponents around the world were saying a year ago. That's good for Spain but bad for anti-Bush Americans, at least temporarily. The U.S. press doesn't care much right now about the facts on the ground in Iraq -- a nation (of Europeans!) has dared to suggest that George W. Bush may not have a monopoly on appropriate ideas for dealing with Islamist terror, and that can't be tolerated, because Bush's assessment of the problem is so gloriously simple. Thus the Spanish election results, initially viewed as a blow to Bush, have actually been a boon for Bushism.

In a week or two you'll again be able to read the op-ed page of a major newspaper in America without encountering the word "appeasement" flung about by a Bushist apparatchik. Until then, however, expect the president's poll numbers to rise a bit and Kerry's to slip.