It’s a bird! it’s a plane! No, it’s the new Dodge Challenger, flags a-flying, mowing down a column of hapless redcoats as Americans in powdered wigs get cars and freedom right. You Betcha!

And to think it was only yesterday the American taxpayer, via the despised American government, bailed Chrysler out of the hole its enlightened free-enterpriser managers had dug for it. Chrysler ought to be a poster child for the economic failures of the past thirty years, sleaze upon sleaze. And now here’s more.

But it isn’t just Chrysler. There’s a trend, and where there’s a trend there’s an advertiser trying to take advantage of it. It’s the American way. According to a Washington Post story today,

Spokeswoman Dianna Gutierrez declined to say whether the Challenger commercial — which the company timed to appear during the World Cup soccer match between the United States and England — was aimed at buyers who are sore about the bailout.

But, sensitive to the fact that taxpayers helped pay for the slick new ad, she said Chrysler saved money by using costumes left over from an old Mel Gibson movie.

The same story puts the amount American taxpayers have paid Chrysler at “more than $7 billion.” A recent ABC News story under Diane Sawyer’s byline puts the figure at $22 billion. That’s a lot of “more than.” How interesting that management at Chrysler now seeks to exploit free-floating anger. Maybe the next thing will be pre-installed gun racks as standard equipment in Dodge pickups or other exploitation of more targeted forms of rage. There’s plenty of good stuff in Mel Gibson’s trash, after all, real tea party stuff.