Vanity Fair and CBS News is teaming up for regular polls to survey “the American consciousness.”  First poll out asks which company is “the best corporate symbol of America today.”  The winner, garnering 48% of the vote, is Wal-Mart. Before you wet your pants about this, consider that those polled had only five choices, the others being Microsoft (doubtful to have won if you were on your computer at the time), NFL (unlikely choice of females), Google (reserved for the technocrats), and Goldman Sachs (placed in the survey just to see if you were paying attention).

Now watch as Wal-Mart’s PR officers try to breathlessly make the claim that it is the pre-eminent symbol of American capitalism!

If you’re not impressed, as I’m not with such a silly poll, you have ample evidence to bolster your impression.  Jeffrey Fager, the executive producer of “60 Minutes” said, “We’re combining our collective brainpower.”