MSNBC leans forward until it falls on a really bad tagline

MSNBC seems to be the network for people who are angry at other people for being angry at something in the first place. I think. This would at least explain their struggle to find an audience. To help them in their audience-finding effort they’ve unleashed a new tagline: Lean Forward. As in, “Lean forward but try not to fall asleep.”

All you have to do is compare that with Fox’s “We report, you decide” to see what an epic fail this is.

The problem is that the tagline is in perfect keeping with the brand: It sums up the sort-of-but-not-quite-left-of-center liberals whom both the Right and the Left can’t stand. It’s like they really want to be for something, but not if it’s going to upset you. Lean forward, don’t actually move there. Which is really odd given that MSNBCs two most (only?) successful shows are Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow – neither of whom can be said to lack for fire. And one of whom, Maddow, is actually intelligent, too!

Congrats to MSNBC on producing one of the three worst taglines currently in use. The other two:

• Army strong. With a half-a-trillion dollar budget you’d think they could afford at least one verb.
• Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru. I still can’t believe someone got paid for coming up with that.

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Having decided to accept less qualified applicants, Army also decides to give them less training

clipped from www.boston.com “We are doing everything we can without jeopardizing the quality of the training to make it more efficient and compress it,” Colonel Joe Gallagher, chief of plans for the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, said in an interview earlier this month. “The whole intent is to get the soldier into the unit where he can be used faster. Time will tell if something is missing.”

This is spin talk for we are so short of warm bodies that we will do anything. Unfortunately the proof of whether something is missing is … horrible. This is far too reminiscent of what the military did in the late 60s/early 70s. And look how well that turned out.I take this a bit personally as these are the people who are going to be next to Staff Sgt. Big Brother Collateral Damage should he ever have to play another round in the George Bush Desert Classic.

Any senior officer who signed off on this should resign or face a court-martial.

And, by the way, congrats to Jenna Bush on her engagement. Since she’s not in the service. I assume her fiance is.

Remember: Army Strong is Army Dumb

Army Strong is Army dumb

The US Army is going all out to drive the brand message throughout the organization. It’s new slogan Army Strong is even easier to read than its very recent predecessor An Army of One which replaced the possibly confusing Be All That You Can Be. This is in keeping with an overall effort to make the Army simpler and easier to use. Recently the Army announced it had made its 2006 recruitment numbers by lowering its entrance requirements (not sure how much lower they can go, at my physical all they required was a pulse and four limbs). In a further effort to make it easier for any vaguely sentient creature to join the ranks, the service has also instructed drill instructors to yell less and in general stop being so hard on the recruits — thereby allowing so that more of them pass basic training. The new Army campaign kicks in November under the command of McCann Worldwide. Maybe the agency should look into even further simplification: “Army!”