Assholes of the Week: General Motors

President Obama bailed them out so they could spend our tax dollars on this?

The League of American Bicyclists calls it, "one of the more remarkably ill-conceived car ad campaigns of all time:"

If you are a student looking to add tens of thousands of dollars of long term debt, care little about the environment, and want to lump two tons of steel around campus while paying through the nose for insurance, gas, and parking…General Motors has got a perfect deal for you. Bonus: it’ll make you fat and unhealthy! All you have to do is give up that dorky bicycle that’s easy to use, practically free, gets you some exercise and is actually fun to ride.

Considering that 95% of all advertising is sexual innuendo, this is about as literal as you can get:

Copenhagenize.com points out the hysterical contradiction between GM's stated environmental values and their actions in the face of "...stiff and growing competition from bicycle traffic."

Except GM gets it wrong. There certainly is a correlation between sexual performance and the car you drive, or don't drive, rather. The woman in the ad, her eyes directed...(ahem) lower...is actually just fed up with her driver's erectile dysfunction.

No wonder Cav is so happy and Tony is such a grump:

That's where my laughter stops, because the fight is just beginning: in 2008 bicycles outsold cars for the first time since before World War II. While GM has now pulled these ads preying on the financial insecurities of broke college students, they serve to remind us that the stakes couldn't be higher in the battle for making our streets safer while building a sustainable economy.