Save the Stupid

"What did you expect? 'Welcome, sonny'? 'Make yourself at home'? 'Marry my daughter'? You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know . . . morons."

--Gene Wilder to Cleavon Little in "Blazing Saddles"

For our money, one of the funniest lines in the history of cinema.

We thought of this today as we read about the newest trend in corporate litigation: suing one's rivals over potentially false advertising. ("Best Soup Ever? Suits Over Ads Demand Proof") Understand, this is not a case of Company A suing Company B over perceived slander; in these cases, one company challenges potentially hyperbolic claims by another--hyperbolic claims that "not many consumers even take at face value."

One lawsuit making its way through the courts involves a series of Verizon ads called "There's a Map for That." You've probably seen them. They feature maps showing in red all the places where Verizon has 3G coverage (whatever that is--it's apparently desirable). Towards the end of the 30-second spots, we see a map displaying the comparatively smaller area of 3G coverage provided by AT&T:

The map upsets AT&T because, according to company spokesman Mark Siegel, "It suggests to the viewer that not only is there no 3G coverage in that area, but there is no coverage at all." (Keen-eyed Sloppists should pay no attention to the large caption at the bottom of the map: "5X More 3G Coverage.")

We suspect disingenuousness. AT&T acknowledges the map's accuracy. Corporate executives made a calculated decision to proceed with the lawsuit, hoping that a judge might order Verizon to discontinue the ads while the case is adjudicated (he didn't). As of now, AT&T is proceeding with the suit.

Honestly, we hope AT&T is being disingenuous. Because, if not, they are essentially saying that their subscribers--actual and potential--are illiterate cattle.

Maybe that is what they think, though. And while we can hardly begrudge AT&T its right to corner the moron market, we are dismayed by this latest instance of patronizing the congenitally stupid.

Remember David Howard? Back in 1999, Howard headed the Office of the Public Advocate in Washington, D.C. He made the mistake of correctly (if pompously) using the word 'niggardly' in a sentence. Vocabulary-challenged Washingtonians and others around the country pounced on the hapless Howard for uttering such an offensive term--and in the presence of two black staffers at that!

Except of course there was no offensive term, 'niggardly' meaning 'miserly.' (Well, OK, it might be offensive to misers, but none of them complained.)

Rather than seeing this as a "teachable moment," Howard, after profusely apologizing for. . . something, was forced to resign. For the sake of Washingtonians, we hope he wasn't a very good Public Advocate and that his (presumably less sesquipedalian) replacement served the city well.

As that tribune of anti-intellectualism Sarah Palin continues her book tour through flyover country, we roll our teeth and gnash our eyes--something like that--at the ever-apparent impulse not to mold the "common clay" of our society into something great, but simply to keep massaging the amorphous blob, softening it up, letting its potential remain unrealized. . . .