Whitley County Patriots

From Jalopnik:

GM’s new ad for the Corvette makes a not-so-veiled swipe at the Obama administration, implying Chevy will keep building manned rockets even if — thanks to the President’s budget cuts — NASA won’t. It’s brilliantly Amerigasmic.

The new ad for the 2011 Chevy Corvette line-up is the product of their new firm Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and features the awesome Corvette ZR1 along with nostalgic video of NASA’s Saturn V program from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. It also features a knock at the current space policy with this line: “While time has marched on and priorities have changed, it’s nice to know America still builds rockets.”

That’s clearly a reference to the new Obama space policy, which calls for less of a focus on manned spaced flight — like the Constellation program — and more work done on other space initiatives.

Like the overly patriotic “This Is Our Country” ads of the past, it appeals to a certain kind of Americanism — albeit in a much less heavy-handed way.

And that’s a really good thing, because America needs to remember again what it’s like to be proud at being world class at what we do — whether it’s traveling to the deepest reaches of space or making an affordable supercar like the Corvette ZR1.

And the message Chevrolet’s sending appeals to all of us who believe America (and by extension NASA) should still be about encouraging children to study the world and space that surrounds them. We won’t get that same sense of wonderment when Richard Branson’s sending whichever Russian mobster has the money to pay for it.