A courageous reporter

He's not quite Ernie Pyle, but I still have to respect Richard Rushfield, who writes for Slate about his adventures posing as a Bush supporter in Kerryland and a normal person--I mean, a Kerry voter--in "Red America", which for his purposes is Newport Beach, CA. (I guess a drive to the nearest solidly-Republican state, Utah, was out of the question. Besides, he wouldn't have known where Starbucks was out there.)

Insight ensues:

Driving home, I rip off my Bush-Cheney shirt so I can walk the streets of my neighborhood unjeered at and without terrifying little children. Reflecting on the sting of being called "asshole" during my travels through Blue America, I wonder: If I were truly a Bush supporter, how long would I be able to endure a life filled with epithets before I gave up on the shirt? Changing into a nonpartisan brown Gap polo, I breathe a sigh of relief that I will never have to find out.

I guess this passes for insight. (Did it have to be a brown shirt?)