James Joyner at my occasional-blogging-home of OTB takes note of the controversy surrounding an advertisement by Absolut Vodka which ran in a Mexican newspaper.

The thoughts I had, in pseudo-random order:

• Most of those annoyed the ad are Republicans. Abraham Lincoln and many other early Republican leaders first made their name in politics as Whig opponents of the Mexican-American War (which was seen at the time as partially motivated by southern slaveowners to grab some more land south of the Missouri Compromise line).
• I look forward to Absolut’s ad for the U.S. market, commemorating the 54° 40’ or bust campaign.
• Look for every irredentist movement in the world to have their own T-shirt spoofing the ad soon.
• One of these days I need to write up my half-thought-out blog post on the border fence. But not today… I’m off to the Art Institute to see the Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer exhibitions.