If Miller or Bud Had Their Way.....

Miller, Miller High Life, Miller Lite, Miller Genuine Draft, MGD Lite, Icehouse, Budweiser, Bud Light, Bud Select, Bud Dry, Bud Ice, Bud Ice Light, Michelob.....what do they all have in common?

They are all light lager. They are all made the same way, with the same adjuncts, using lager yeast, cold fermented and cold filtered. The point is that between Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing Company, there are more than 50 individual products, all of which are exactly the same thing.

Through aggressive marketing campaigns, the two giants have convinced us that each product is a new, different and compelling option. They have given each of their beers a different character and appeal, and to huge success. People swear that there is significant taste differences even between Bud Lite and Miller Lite to the point where they 'swear by' one or the other.

Before you think this is simply a tirade against the brewing giants....

Look at our options in Iran. We really one have one option; one self-fulfilling prophecy.

One of today's lead stories in the Washington Post is "Iran's Defiance Narrows U.S. Options for Response." Paragraph after paragraph, while complaining that "no other option exists" but to essentially 'live with the situation[paraphrased]' seems to make overtures for war, because it presents 'living with it' as essentially unacceptable to any reasonable human being. Sort of like "do want this lovely golden lollypop with honey and ponies that tastes like strawberrys dipped in chocolate and champagne that will make you $1,000,000 or that other hard candy over there?"

Consider the last paragraph of the article, taken within context of the tone of the entire article itself:

"We've been trying coercive diplomacy and the Iranians have just sent a very clear message: 'Nice try, it just won't work,' " said Clifford Kupchan, an analyst at the Eurasia Group. "The only diplomatic option we haven't tried" is to cut a deal directly. "We might as well try putting everything on the table."

Take that quote in context with:

"Their Plan A is to put incremental pressure on Iran so it will cave," said retired Air Force Col. P.J. Crowley, a National Security Council aide under President Bill Clinton who now works at the liberal Center for American Progress. "And there is no Plan B."

Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, complained during an appearance yesterday in Houston that it is hard to find a diplomatic resolution because Ahmadinejad "is not a rational human being."

That has left Bush with few attractive alternatives. "At this point, your options seem to be not good and scarce," said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Your other option is living with it . . . and I think that's what will happen."

While the article, then, ends with a statement about putting all of the options on the table, the rest of the article hints that really, there are no other options. Certainly other options exist, and they are pointed out in the article. But Dick Haass points out here what each of those options ends up with:

If Iran violated the terms, he [former Bush State Department Official Richard Haass] said on the Web site of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is president, the deal would spell out consequences including sanctions and "conceivably military force."

And there it is. Be it Miller, Bud, or whatever, we appear to have options via aggressive marketing. But at the end of the day, what options do we really have? Or more to the point, what options are we actually given?