"this is our country"? dear Christ.

Lately, I haven't felt motivated to post about anything. However, I can't blame my lazitude on a lack of rantable material: skeezified horn-dog politicians, crazy nuclear dictators, my blossoming love for Alec Baldwin. Instead, I'm going to blame it on an overabundance of material.

But despite the bad news saturation level of late, something has finally infuriated me enough to break through to my numb intellect: have you seen the new commercial for Chevy's 2007 Silverado? I read an Ad Critic review on Slate a few days ago and finally had the privilege of catching it on the air today. Good Lord--I have never seen a worse commercial. Instead of focusing on one emotional button (the dad smiling at his little daughter, a good neighbor's helping hands, a Navy jet-fighter swooping over the Land of the Free), Chevy threw reason to the wind and hit all of them: Rosa Parks, war, Nixon, terrorism, firefighters, smiling kids and wheatfields. And don't forget the awesome soundtrack: John Mellencamp's ham-handed tribute to flag-blinded patriotism. The Ad Critic article gives a much better (and hilarious) assessment of this commercial than I ever could, but even without a detailed evaluation you come away with the feeling that Chevy ad executives are now doling out emotional punches with the same finesse as a toddler playing the piano. (Forget fingers--when you use both forearms you can hit ALL of the keys at once! Hot damn!)

The sad thing is, all of this firepower is being whipped out in a desperate attempt to sell crappy American trucks to what we can only assume are easily manipulated red-state Wal-Mart workers who only wished they had a reason to own the motorized equivalent of a giant penis. The sadder thing is--it will probably work.

Ugh. Who needs a Budweiser?