I was speaking with a 72-year old rural white woman a few months ago. Loyal Democrat. Teamster. Anti-war. Uneducated, though not incurious.

She asked what I thought about the primary, and I told her I was completely faithless in the political system after watching The Democratic Party's invaluable assistance to the Bush Regime, and the Democratic voters' refusal to hold their own party accountable for its endless betrayals. She understood exactly what I was talking about, and largely concurred.

"How 'bout you?" I asked.

Her brow furrowed. "I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who say 'I'll never vote for a goddamn nigger.'" She stopped short of saying she, too, was one of those people. But I know her, and I know she is most assuredly one of them.

Sean Wilentz - who can't seem to help discrediting himself again and again - might consider venturing off campus and talking to real voters sometime. I have no confidence that he will, nor that he would be honest about his findings if he did.

To Patrick Morgan: Thank you. "Society of the Spectacle" is one of the primary reasons why I excel as a branding specialist without the benefit of a formal education or training (another being that I have no formal education of training, which is counterintuitive, but nonetheless true).

To ihop: The only thing "shocking" is that people who consider themselves critical thinkers actually believe the relationship between branding and "the honest dissemination of information about a product" is anything other than tangential or wholly coincidental.

Most marketing professionals, in my experience, are no less deluded than consumers. After all, consumerism is a collective psychosis which, in a hypercapitalist society, affects everyone to some degree - and that degree is significantly greater than most realize (which was the point of the article).

In any case, "honesty" doesn't sell products, although cultivating the perception of honesty ranks high on the objective of brand consultants. GE's marketing campaign to improve its reputation among those who consider themselves environmentally conscious is the most obvious example, but mass deception in advertising is a universal dynamic. As is often the case, the forest is damn hard to see because of the trees.

What absolutely, unequivocally sells products is appealing to prejudices and insecurities of any given market. Even actual utility is an afterthought.

Advertising works because so many people believe it doesn't.