Clint and Bruce

Something about the Super Bowl always sucks me in. It’s the essential experience of Brand America. And nowhere was Brand America more on display than in the Chrysler half-time commercial featuring Clint Eastwood letting us know it’s half-time in America...and we’re all scared because this isn’t a game. But, not to worry, if Detroit has bounced back then so can America. Why? Because that’s what we do, we find a way through tough times and if we can’t find one, then we make one.

Now that’s what I call speaking to the zeitgeist of America. I can’t say if America knows it has a zeitgeist but the Creatives who hired Clint know it does. And so does Bruce. He’s just uploaded a song from his new album, Wrecking Ball. It’s called We Take Care of Our Own. It’s classic Springsteen, a danceable guitar lick that draws you in and holds on, as Bruce’s rough voice talks about stumbling on good hearts turned to stone and scenes from hardscrabble America move by. Then the refrain comes in, over and over: we take care of our own, we take care of our own, we take care of our own.

What to make of this? Well, I’d say the good news is America is admitting it’s broke, broken, beaten. And if, as they say, the first step to recovery is admitting the problem, step one is underway. Then again, I have another voice that says “what utter horseshit” (W.U.H., for short). Half-time? The game is over and you lost. You were best in the league in the 20th century but, hey, you had some pathetic general managers of late who drove the franchise into the ground. And as to taking care of your own? Since when?

The latest news I know about taking care of your own is this one: federal law has barred troops from suing the government for any injuries they suffer as a result of malpractice in military medical facilities, no matter how negligent or egregious the error. That’s been in place for years actually, but now they’re extending it to spouses and children of troops. You’d think that when it comes to taking care of our own, Veterans would be the one class of citizens for whom the statement would be true.* And I know I don’t need to talk about how many uninsured Americans there are, blah blah blah, so I won’t. Let’s just say the only way I can understand Bruce singing We Take Care of Our Own in the same way I understand companies that declare Our People Are Our Most Valuable Asset—it’s aspirational. We’d like to act in ways that confirm the statement and we’re sorry we don’t, but we are trying, really, we are.

And so, even if it’s not half-time in America, we want to act like it is. We want to dust ourselves off and believe there’s a whole lot of game left in us and, even more importantly, there’s plenty of time on the clock. And if Madison Avenue (this time it was Weiden and Kennedy actually, headquartered in Portland, Oregon) simply keeps telling us, we’ll come to believe it. And who knows, it may just come true. Right?

*In truth, Canada’s not much better. Back in November, this was the news: Canada's veterans who think they were poisoned in the 1991 Gulf War and in the Balkans can't trust the government when it says they're fine, said scientists at an international conference.