Curse you, Powerline! And this is for the horse you rode in on!

Powerline's Scott "Big Trunk" Johnson ("Johnson," eh?) has been on PepsiCo president Indra K. Nooyi for inappropriate remarks at a college graduation speech. As Johnson portrayed it, Nooyi used a rather infantile device to make political comments about the U.S., with five important continents represented by the five fingers, with the U.S. as the middle finger.

PepsiCo objected, and I wondered whether Powerline might not be overplaying its hand; surely the middle finger thing was just a coincidence.

Johnson requested a copy of the speech and PepsiCo resisted, saying he'd take it out of context. So he offered to publish the whole thing. Instead of responding further, PepsiCo's press hacks put out a see-how-patriotic-I-am press release for Nooyi's signature. Then they posted the full transcript, though apparently they didn't provide it directly to Johnson, which I find a bit churlish.

So read the speech text and judge for yourself what Nooyi's patriotism looks like. My guess is the text won't survive the week. All I can say is, I'm sorry I drink Coke, since I won't have the opportunity to protest by quitting Pepsi. Maybe I'll go picket a Taco Bell.