The following commentary on the Economist’s Website pretty well captures my sentiment: "To say that people should not have a say in something because they lack the understanding is frankly an insult and not democracy."  I am all for Europe, but not this way!  To threaten voters and to insult their intelligence is not appropriate for a democracy to pass legislation, no matter how important it may be.

As frightening, almost all the commentary I read in the German media (Welt, Tagesschau) states that the Irish had been unthankful and that all people agreeing with their sentiment are unthankful as well.

As so often, the most balanced reporting I found was… in the Economist.  Here are the highlights:

More important, the Lisbon treaty’s claims to democratic legitimacy are already threadbare. The Lisbon text is a reworking of an earlier attempt to create a constitution for the EU. That grandiose project was killed off by votes against it in twin referendums in 2005, in France and the Netherlands. It was no accident that Lisbon was a hard text to read: EU leaders were to be heard crowing last year that they had made it “unintelligible” in order to smuggle it past voters. The Lisbon treaty was specifically designed to be passed by the less risky route of parliamentary votes.(…)

Ireland now faces a fight to remain at the heart of Europe, amid calls for its marginalisation. That would be outrageous hypocrisy, of course: Ireland only had to vote on the Lisbon treaty because the French and Dutch had already voted no to the constitution. But the EU has been wounded today: do not be surprised if some of its leaders lash out.