Demagogue

I must have a twin I haven't met. In today's Washington Post, Desmond Bieler said everything I've been thinking about rocker-for-rent John Mellencamp and his annoying, GM-appropriated song. Bieler writes:

So, if this really is our country, can't we ban these [expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive, pause for breath, expletive] ads with the John Mellencamp song?

They don't make me want to buy a Chevy so much as buy a vowel. The vowel, O, to be precise, so I can belt out an extra-long "Boooooo!!"

Every time an NFL game goes to a commercial break .....

I had to endure this during the World Series as well.

.... which, of course, only happens when Peyton Manning goes to the no-huddle -- but that's another rant, that god-awful tune starts up again.

Hang out in a sports bar showing multiple games with the audio on, and it's like being in the world's most jingoistic echo chamber.

... The second worst thing about the (General Motors) ads is the rip-off job Mellencamp performs on his self-professed idol, Woody Guthrie. Guthrie's classic song (one he most assuredly never licensed for commercial use) went, "This land is your land, this land is my land, from California, to the New York Island . . . this land was made for you and me."

As Mellencamp's version has it, "From the East Coast, to the West Coast . . . this is our country." Clever tweak there.

Guthrie wrote on his guitar, "This Machine Kills Fascists." Apparently, Mellencamp's ax reads, "This Machine Sells Fully Loaded Half-Ton Silverados."

While we're on the topic, does GM really think that wrapping itself in a rah-rah, patriotic message is going to return the company to prosperity? Lest we forget, they tried this before.

If you're as old as me, you remember Chevy's ad campaign in the late 1970s — the jingle about how "we love baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet." GM can't quite accept the fact that many people who deeply love America don't want to buy unattractive vehicles with clunky designs, gas-guzzling engines and poor maintenance records.