Frustrated with the continued currency of certain academic work — given that none of the prior attacks laid a glove on the substance, as happens when all that is offered is ad hominem — the Spanish Left have resumed their assault on professor Gabriel Calzada of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, author of the first assessment of Spain’s vaunted (by our president) “green jobs” boondoggle.

In the past week one newspaper placed him at the center of a rather impressive, if fever-induced conspiracy in which he directs Spain’s former prime minister and the opposition party’s leader-in-waiting (a slghtly grander version of the treatment I received from the Independent and Guardian, on the same day, after Greenpeace cobbled together unrelated items from my trash to craft a story line with two “reporters”).

They have also resumed their line that Calzada is unpatriotic by letting the cat out of the bag; of course, it was the president of the renewables industry that admitted in response to Calzada’s study that Spain needs the U.S. to fall for the myth and bail them out (traitor!). In recent days lefty blogs have extended this theme to call on the government to revoke his passport — a tactic I wrote about in Red Hot Lies – initiate some sort of legal process against him, along with the odd incitement of violence against him.

As I’ve asked before: guys, if the facts are on your side, why the tactics smacking of fear, desperation, and a content-free case?