ASp, let's see if someone can tell which "word" I think is the least appropriate...

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Calling one side "water" and the other side "earth" and the third side "air" would be A LOT more elemental.

...America's decision to divide itself into blue and red cultures is a pretty genteel affair, more on the order of a summer camp color war.

It's words grouped like these that keep me turning off these "air waves" because they are (most often (to me)) anything and everything but fresh. These, specifically, state first that "America" made a decision about this (I believe 'which' colors are for the most part meaningless... unless one would like to get into the psycological studies occurring before they solidified which may have brought up the use in the first place or possibly 'for what *reasons' the colors chosen above may or may not be appropriate based on those findings) and then says "the networks" made the decision?... Well, which is it?

... as this breath of fresh air[cough] also seeks to trivialize a relationship (or lack thereof) by simplifying its understanding and the intensity of which the sides are polarized by equating it with a "summer camp color war".

The speed at which polarizing information flies around the world has been multiplied exponentialy by at least all of the number of years the cited wars were *brewing. We don't need killing fields to define intensity, anymore (let's not go there). To insinuate that the networks speak for the public is most a regretable (and unfortunate) understanding of thier position(IMHO). Did they feel images of the donkey and the elephant (or the words) or both had fallen out of flavor?