I saw those too. On the Upper West Side, where they are in their target demographic.

Judith, there's another one that shows an elephant playing with what looks like old clothes and a tennis racket. It says (I paraphrase) "Now that the Democrats have cleaned house, why don't you?"

This shouldn't come asa a surprise from a company that for years ran ads bashing suburbanites and rural folk. Message: It's boring/scary out there! Better to stick with that 5th-floor walk-up and the two roommates rather than move somewhere where you can own a home with sufficient closet space and basement storage! You might meet people who *gasp* think differently!

For our non-NYC readers: the ads Jeff refers to are all over the subways. They appeal to strenuous hipsters from the burbs who have a huge psychological investment in deprecating their origins.

I first noticed the Cheney ads on a Subway train a few weeks. ago. How pathetic and pandering they are! What annoys me is that they just assume that everyone will agree with them.

"they just assume that everyone will agree with them"

You mean you don't? Fascist!

"strenuous hipsters from the burbs who have a huge psychological investment in deprecating their origins"

Judith, that is spot-on. Like you, I'm from the mid-west/west, and I know these people intimately. Your description encapsulates a type of person and a psychological phenomenon in a succint and wonderful way!

I really believe that a huge majority of the white left/chattering classes suffers from this syndrome. Their "progressive" politics amount to one lifelong tantrum against their "daddy" (i.e. Uncle Sam).

Can you boil it down to a BDS-style acronym? I want to print stickers and t-shirts and hand them out in Union Square!!!

"What annoys me is that they just assume that everyone will agree with them."

How do you figure that? How is this ad any different in that respect from "It's Miller Time"? I never drank a Miller in my life (I don't like beer); should I get all huffy that Miller Brewing Co. "...just assume(s) that [I] will agree with them"? Perhaps it's time to stop straining so hard to find things to be offended by. Surely there are plenty of important, substantive issues to rant about - I certainly don't have any trouble finding more than I can count without carping about self-storage ads on bus shelters. Besides, partisan chips-on-the-shoulder aside, the ads are pretty funny. Why do right-wingers have to be so darn humorless?

As a current Manhattan Mini-Storage client, and offended by their use of anti-Bush, anti-Cheney ads, I called the parent company's chairman, Jerome Gottesman. The purpose of my call was to express my displeasure, to ask whether or not they would end the ad campaign (and if so by when), and to inform them that I will shortly become a former client if the ad campaign does not end shortly.

I received a call back from a woman named Stacy Stewart, who says that she heads up the marketing efforts for Edison Properties, and as such is responsible for the ads' content. The voice-mail message she left me said, "... the ads are not intended to be anti-Bush... "

Apparently she takes me as an idiot; unfortunately for her I am not.

The ad in question states: "Your Closet's Scarier Than Bush's Agenda."

Not Bush's plan -- his "agenda." Nice lamestream media weasel word there.

And note that, according to Manhattan Mini-Storage, Bush's plan is at least to some degree "scary." Scary, as in bad.

No, no anti-Bush ad here, nothing to see here, just keep quiet like all the other sheep, move along, move along...

I will offer Ms. Stewart the opportunity to explain her comment if and when I get her on the phone live -- she did kindly leave me her direct phone number, (973) 849-2556. But I don't expect her comments to be enough to get me to change my mind: soon, I will be a former customer of Manhattan Mini-Storage.

Kind regards,
Mike A. Smith
gosbuxgo001@yahoo.com