contrapositive

POTENT POTABLES The spat between Bud Light and Miller Light has seemed to escalate, in recent days, from a friendly (if mischievous) game of one-upsmanship to a genuine battle, complete with bad blood.

On Friday, a Federal judge ordered Anheuser-Busch to pull an anti-Miller ad. This after Miller brought suit against Budweiser's parent company earlier in the day, for what it described as a campaign to deface Miller Light cases with Bud Light stickers.

Silly, silly boys.

I've been following the corporate brawl, mostly because Anheuser-Busch's "All Light Beers Are Low in Carbs--Choose on Taste" campaign strikes me as being almost infuriatingly obnoxious and disingenuous.

For starters, the claim that all light beers are low in carbs, while not an outright lie, is an unusally blatant bit of commercial obfuscation.

The nugget of information the folks at Anheuser-Busch don't want you to know--and are using millions of dollars to obscure--is this: A can of Bud Light contains 6.6 grams of carbohydrates while a bottle of Miller Light has only 3.2 grams.

So, yes: While both beers may be low in carbs compared to a Big Mac (46 grams), Miller Lite is about twice as Atkins-friendly as Bud Light. Budweiser hasn't so much massaged the facts as run directly away from them.

IT GETS WORSE: Still, as distasteful and willfully deceitful as the "Choose on Taste" tag line is, it would be harder to detest if Anheuser-Busch, as a corporate entity, really bought into the thought behind it.

You wouldn't blame Coldstone Creamery, for example, for launching ads that chided people for counting calories.

But Anheuser-Busch doesn't believe its own rhetoric. Because while the company downplays the differences in carbohydrate content among beers with one side of its mouth, the other side is busy promoting Michelob Ultra--its 2.6 carb grams entry in the Atkins-friendly beer sweepstakes.

So: Choose on Taste. Or count carbs with our premium-brand. But whatever you do, steer clear of "Queen of Carbs" Miller Lite.

Hmm...

It's not shocking, of course, that a company that's built a multi-billion dollar business selling inferior products would market its goods in a way that's less than forthright.

But I guess I just find it a bit suprising to see a campaign for a light beer earnestly encouraging consumers to ignore just how light that light beer happens to be.

THE GOOD NEWS: The campaign isn't working. Miller Light sales grew 13.2 percent for the 26-week period ended May 8. Bud Light sales declined 0.8 percent.

ANOTHER THOUGHT:Setting aside the deviousness angle: Has anyone ever walked into a party, dug a hand deep down into a cooler and, choosing on taste, picked out a Bud Light?

FINALLY, A DISCOVERY: Budweiser is giving out free yourname@budweiser.com e-mail addresses. Check it out. "No annoying third-party advertising," the site boasts.

Now that seems like a sophisticated, sensible marketing strategy...