This report from Brussels Journal about Spain’s leader begging to get invited to the economic conference in Washington is hilarious.

Facing a mountain of criticism (and an avalanche of ridicule) at home, a visibly embarrassed Zapatero launched a diplomatic offensive unprecedented in the annals of modern Spanish history to ensure that Spain gets invited to the summit. Zapatero and his bumbling foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, pounded the pavement for weeks crying “We will be in Washington!” and pleading with anyone who would listen to intercede on Spain’s behalf. Countries like Argentina, Brazil and China were recruited for the cause and French President Nicolas Sarkozy even offered Zapatero one of the two seats that France had been offered at the meeting.

In the end, however, it was Bush who had the final say. And Bush, who has been vilified as the personification of evil by Zapatero and his anti-American Socialist acolytes for more than four years, decided to give the hapless Spanish prime minister a break. Zapatero will now be coming to Washington after all.

Man of La Mancha!

Zapatero has tried, and failed, for more than four years to get some one-on-one face-time with the American president. Zapatero, who is arguably the most anti-American leader in Europe today, is (unsurprisingly) one of the only such Europeans never to have been invited to the White House.

But in the logic of Spanish politics, that elusive visit to the Oval Office (to see an American president who up until now has been broadly despised by most Spaniards) also happens to be the main litmus test by which Spanish voters will judge whether Zapatero gets promoted from provincial politician to international “statesman” during his second term.

Not surprisingly, Zapatero’s permanent non-relationship with the most powerful leader in the free world has become something of a media obsession in Spain, with the issue generating many miles of ink in newspapers across the country. During the last four years, Bush and Zapatero have exchanged a grand total of 18 words, each of which have been meticulously scrutinized by the Spanish media for possible indications of an impending rapprochement.