The Corner

Maybe I Should Get Tivo

Three TV commercials I can’t stand:

1. Budweiser Select: Could there be a duller spokesman than August Busch IV? Does monotone sell beer? It’s enough to make me run screaming for Pete Coors in the Rockies.

2. Coke: I’m thinking of the one with polar bears and penguins. Don’t they know that polar bears live in the Arctic and penguins in the Antarctic? This is biological illiteracy.

3. MasterCard: The ads with Peyton Manning, who won’t be appearing in this year’s Superbowl, are funny, as he acts like a crazed fan cheering on everyday people as they perform ordinary jobs. The one where he asks the grocery store stockboy to sign a loaf of bread for his little brother is especially funny. But these commercials also leave a bad taste in my mouth. They show a football superstar mocking the enthusiams of his fans, and suggest that grocery store stockboys are less worthy of applause than sports jocks. There’s something fundamentally arrogant about this.

John J. Miller, the national correspondent for National Review and host of its Great Books podcast, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.
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