Apparently, George W is opposing a bill to help people recover from flooding in the Gulf Coast.  It’s called row versus wade.

That counts as my epiphany du jour.  Aside from my own satisfaction at figuring this out, one larger point.

I'm not quite sure what it says about this community that people complain about the mainstream media frequently enough to need an abbreviation for it.  For all the good ideas and discussion around here, that worries me a bit.  Maybe I haven't embraced my cynicism fully.  Maybe my intake of political discussion is on the low side.  I don't disagree that most of the "news" around is really "infotainment," but I do think that there are some key differences between, say, FoxNews and CNN.  Not as much as I'd like, perhaps.  Still, something about "MSM" seems to imply belief in a conspiracy to keep the Democrats down! 

I just figured this particular abbreviation out (fortunately, it's one of the few populating TPMCafe), so my initial response might be half-baked.  But I had not seen such widespread contempt for the mainstream media until I began frequenting this cafe.

This caught my eye for a couple of reasons. 

First, it expressed quite succinctly an opinion or plan of action that has often been implied, but never expressed outright.  Or if it has, I haven’t heard it couched in quite those terms.

Second, it’s an ephemeral artifact, something that won’t end up in an archive — digital or manuscript — though the sticky remains will likely linger with the car.  (After all, has anyone discovered a good way to take off those parking stickers that go on the inside of the car?  I can only imagine how much worse a bumper sticker would be.) I don’t know how the war in/on Iraq will be recorded in the history books of the future, but this bumper sticker would be a good illustration for the chapter on opposition.

Third, upon closer examination, the bumper sticker had been cobbled together from two others.  I’m sure you can imagine what they said.  This made the linkage between the two issues even more striking — it was a deliberate effort by the driver to combine distinct strains of thought.  Both have intellectual currency, but it’s suggestive that a single bumper sticker couldn’t be found.  To overinterpret, that seems to indicate that impeaching George W and supporting the troops are treated as antithetical — at least by the manufacturers of bumper stickers.