Thanks, red staters!

For giving us another four years of news like this:

American intelligence agencies have tripled their formal estimate of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems believed to be at large worldwide, since determining that at least 4,000 of the weapons in Iraq’s prewar arsenals cannot be accounted for, government officials said Friday.

A new government estimate says a total of 6,000 of the weapons may be outside the control of any government, up from a previous estimate of 2,000, American officials said.

…when I use the shorthand of “red staters,” I guess I mean it more as a state of mind — remember, I am from Iowa myself, and not given to writing people off on the basis of geography. Nonetheless, I have been rightly chastised for promulgating this red v. blue crap — when the reality is that it’s mostly a purple country that happens to have tilted ever-so-slightly in favor of the Republicans this year.