José at Barcepundit has a rundown on yesterday's demo in Madrid. Publius Pundit has more.

I don't like symbolic politics and demos and stuff like that. I like thought, serious talk, and real action, which the opposition PP has not been providing lately. Of course, the dreadful Zap administration has never provided any of that, either, so it's kind of like Scylla or Charybdis, not much of a choice.

The demo's purpose was to censure the Zapatero administration in general, its anti-ETA policies more specifically, and the transfer from prison to house arrest of terrorist Iñaki De Juana Chaos in particular.

Well, I agree with the demonstrators. I don't like Zap, his ETA policy, or his release of De Juana Chaos, either. I also think the Zap administration's attempt to deflect criticism of his own performance on the De Juana Chaos affair by attacking ex-PM Aznar's policies was about as demagogic as a political argument can get. No, it doesn't matter whether we're doing something stupid and wrong right now, because the PP did something sort of similar in the past!

I wouldn't have marched in the demo, though. I don't like the mass-rally attitude toward politics at all.

And my attitude toward De Juana Chaos, of course, is that he should be dead. Unfortunately, Spain has no death penalty.

Note: It's always fun, after a big demo, to look at the various reports of how many people were there. I've seen estimates ranging from 300,000 (El País) to 2.2 million (the PP). There were most certainly a hell of a lot of people there, and they were well-behaved; fortunately, no one did anything to tarnish the image of the Right, always a risk at public demos.