From the Des Moines Register:

Glen Keenan got his shiny new personalized license plates on Aug. 1.

The polite, but firm, letter from the Iowa Department of Transportation arrived a week later.

If he would be so kind, the state told him, please "voluntarily surrender" the new plates. Within 10 days. In other words, pronto.

"I don't know what to do, but I don't think so," said Keenan, a lifelong Iowan from Jefferson County. "It's not an obscene message. I really don't understand why I wouldn't be allowed to keep them."

Keenan tells me this is what his personalized Iowa license plates say: ITMFA.

...

There were two complaints about Keenan's plates similar to the objection somebody had in Chapter 1 of Iowa's personalized license plate problem.

Surely you remember John Miller of Boone, the guy who put the "F NADER" plates on his Corvair. The state has ordered the plate be revoked, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa is intervening on his behalf.

The first step is an administrative hearing. Keenan says he, too, is in contact with the ACLU.

Miller's and Keenan's are two of the nine state-ordered revocations this year.

"I don't know what the big deal is with mine," said Keenan, 41. "My plate isn't vulgar. It's simply a series of letters than can mean any number of things."

Really?

"Sure," he said. "It can mean 'Impeach the Miserable Failure Already.' Or it could mean 'Information Technology Masters Fine Arts.' You could think of lots of things. I mean, any vehicle with an 'F' on the license plate could be objectionable to somebody."

Which is why they are treating migraines at the Iowa Department of Transportation. And possibly elsewhere.

The Web site also has pictures of vehicles in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., with the same message on license plates.

What will it take for Keenan to ditch the plates?

"I'll give them up if Bush is impeached or when he's no longer president," Keenan said.