FRANKLY, I'M still recovering and under medication after Time magazine's interview with Zen Zapatero and the accompanying article ("Sexual equality is a lot more effective against terrorism than military strength", Zapaterlain dixit; maybe this was the ultimate reason for his women ministers' photo spread on Vogue: a secret weapon against Islamofascism!).

So, I hadn't commented on yesterday's stellar appearance of our Prime Minister at the UN's General Assembly. Fortunately I don't have to, since V-Man has a great post; go and read it. And wipe your tears afterwards.

And the opposition has loaded the rhetorical guns:

The opposition Popular Party (PP) ridiculed Zapatero's sugestion, claiming he had devalued the image of Spain to the outside world.

PP spokesman Eduardo Zaplana said Zapatero's speech to the UN General Assembly in New York was full of "empty words".

He claimed the speech could create some ironic reaction from other European leaders. Zaplana said they were the thoughts of a college student.

Fact is, Zapaterlain has become, in the international scene, almost radioactive. Beyond the usual suspects, nobody wants to touch him without a 10-feet pole and didn't get any decent photo-op during his visit to New York this week.

UPDATE. EURSOC has more:

And what is Senor Zapatero up to these days. Well, as George Bush was speaking to the UN General Assembly, the BBC reports that Zapatero was lurking on the “fringes of the UN meeting in New York.” (And a damn good place for him too.) Anyhow, while George Bush talked about serious matters, Zapatero, in typical European leftist fashion, was calling for “an alliance of civilizations,” under the direction of the UN, with a mandate to combat terrorism through political and cultural dialogue.

Unfortunately for Zapatero, or perhaps fortunately depending on your perspective, it seems the esteemed Spanish PM has never visited the UN before. If he had, he may have learned that there is already a UN bureaucracy set up to improve understanding among the world’s nations through cultural relations. It’s called UNESCO, and it was one of the most corrupt and inefficient of the many corrupt and inefficient UN bodies until the US and Britain finally left the organization to protest said rot. But when has corruption and ineptitude ever put a damper on the grand ambitions of a Eurupean lefty?

But this is not all. Oh no. Zapatero wants to “deepen political, cultural and education relations between those who represent the so-called Western world and, in this historic moment, the area of Arab and Muslim countries.”

This is a bit confusing. First, why is the Western world “so-called” while the Arab and Muslim countries get to be an “area?” Has the West become so amorphous, so disjointed, that it is now so-called, while the Arab and Muslim area is so easily identifiable? Perhaps Senor Zapatero is suggesting that some of the members of this so-called West – the US for example, or Britain – don’t fit into the “New West.” Maybe the West Zapatero hopes to head this great alliance of civilizations consists rather of the harbingers of humanity, like Chirac’s France and Schroeder’s Germany.