UP THE FLAGPOLE WITHOUT A SALUTE. Anyone here see the premiere episode of "Mad Men," about the bullshit kings of old Madison Avenue? I did, and though I have my objections (remarkably similar to those of James Wolcott), I'd like to see more, because the subject fascinates me. I puttered around some ad agencies in my freelance career, and took great pleasure in hearing the old bulls' recollections of the era depicted in the show. While doing newsletters for Ogilvy, I dug through some of their archives, which transmitted some of the impatient energy that "Mad Men" is going for. One finding concerned a board meeting at which a large batch of new vice-presidents had been proposed. That title is ubiquitous in advertising now (as David Ogilvy once observed, it is cheaper to give titles than raises), and one of the bulls at that particular meeting appears to have smelled an unhealthful change coming. "Seems to me," he sniffed, "that we're giving helmets to cheerleaders." If "Mad Men" can capture some of this tonal mix of patrician hauteur and homespun wisdom, I might have to get cable.

If you did see the premiere, you must recall the drama over the Lucky Strike acount, in which the client, a George Washington Hill type played by John Cullum, bitterly lamented all the foolishness about cigarettes being bad for you ("I've never been sick a day in my life"); the nervous ad guys tried to ease him into the new reality, till hero Don Draper tap-danced a new slogan based on one of the few points of difference left to discuss ad-wise: "It's Toasted." What do you think that scene was about? Draper's poise under fire? The situational ethics of mid-century advertising? The shift in the business between prose poetry and a crisper kind of nonsense? The difference between research and inspiration?

Whatever you saw, I can assure you the view of National Review's S.T. Karnick will surprise you:

In responding to 1950s revelations about the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, the cigarette companies had been making claims that each one’s product was healthier than its competitors’. The federal government moved to put a stop to it.

That might seem a reasonable response at first glance, but it certainly runs afoul of the First Amendment, and it exemplifies the twentieth-century trend of government increasingly overriding people’s personal choices. This ham-fisted action by the feds resonates, of course, with the current crusade by all levels of government to eradicate cigarette smoking from the United States altogether.

Something else you have to give the old Madison Avenue guys: they were much smoother than the bullshit artists of today.