The latest dumbness in American car advertising.

Of late I have noticed that a new rung on the latter of stupidity has been reached by American automakers and their advertising agencies. In a day-late and a dollar-short effort to proclaim their relevance, both Chrysler and Ford have been running commercials of late that talk about how some of their misbegotten vehicles now have MP3 players. Ford's headline is MP3 meets MPG. Whoopdefuckingdoo. Meanwhile, Buick, is running a series of ads in today's NYTimes telling us that their new Enclave is beautiful. They remind me of Jaguar ads of recent vintage that told us that Jaguars are "gorgeous."

It's obvious I have a problem with all this. I believe if you adapted Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to autos the presence of an MP3 player would become relevant probably long after the need for reliability, overall cost of ownership (resale), cost, fuel economy, safety and about 926 other needs were met. In short, boy is this stupid. I don't think the car-buying public cares, or in the case of American car-makers, the car-not-buying public.

All this MP3 nonsense reminds me of a quote widely attributed to Gloria Steinem: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." I think cars that don't work need MP3 players like the American election system needs another donation loophole.