Somewhere, a Clydesdale is crying.

He’s crying because he feels betrayed. The company he… Somewhere, a Clydesdale is crying.

He’s crying because he feels betrayed. The company he works for – works long, hard hours for – is under attack. Anheuser-Busch, the brewing company who, for years, has employed majestic Clydesdales as Budweiser mascots, is being sued for $4 billion. The suit, filed last week in California, charges Anheuser-Busch with, unbelievably, advertising to minors.

Take a moment to appreciate the absurdity of this suit. Steve Berman, a class-action lawyer who successfully sued tobacco makers under a similar law, wants us to believe brewing companies target minors. He claims they package their malt beverages to look like soda, advertise on youth-favorite television shows, and give away teen-friendly promotional items, such as kazoos.

Let’s look at the facts. Anheuser-Busch aired several ads for its popular Bud Light brand during the Super Bowl. The first featured a dog who’d maul your crotch just to get a Bud Light. In the next, Cedric the Entertainer accidentally gets a bikini wax – which means they ripped all the hair off his crotch.

In another, Bud Light turns an ordinary chimp into a suave ladies’ man, in homage to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The chimp puts his arm around the sweet young thing next to him and says, “How do you feel about back hair?” The specter of impending bestiality hovers over this ad’s ambiguous ending. In another commercial, a romantic sleigh ride turns foul when a wicked horse fart sends a fireball flaming into the snowy night.

Are we really supposed to believe these ads were aimed at teen-agers? Suggesting that your average teen would have the maturity and sophistication to appreciate a crotch-biting dog or horse-fueled explosion is like claiming those Miller Lite commercials – you know, where the two hotties are all, like, fighting over whether it “Tastes Great” or is “Less Filling” and then, oops, their clothes come off – is aimed at hormonally unbalanced teen-age boys.

Obviously these commercials are pitched at intelligent, museum-attending adults who appreciate the aesthetics of a genital mauling. If any teens were even watching the Super Bowl – a pretty dubious assumption – they probably looked up from their coloring books only to wonder why Mom and Dad had flipped on PBS to watch Cedric the Entertainer get his pubes yanked off. Clearly, Mr. Berman’s suit doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

But there are people out there who will believe him, because these days, it’s fashionable to believe all corporations are corrupt. You’d think that now that multi-national corporate behemoths run our media, purchase our politicians and raise our children, we wouldn’t have to listen to such complainers. Post-Enron, though, it’s become cool to bash corporations, and that’s the real tragedy here.

Are we really this cynical, people? Do we really believe a multibillion-dollar, mom-and-pop outfit like Anheuser-Busch has anything less than our children’s best interests at heart?

In 1886, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations enjoy all the protections of the Bill of Rights, in Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad. Corporations are people, too, with feelings. Now, more than a century later, we seem to have forgotten that. Our hearts have hardened.

Open them up again, people. Let your love of corporations blossom. Let it grow.

Do it for that Clydesdale who’s done so much for you.

Jesse Hicks has loved many corporations in his day, but there is only one to whom his heart truly belongs this Valentine’s Day. E-mail him at [email protected].