Amid the random montages and Gary Busey shenanigans of Sunday's Oscars, American Express debuted its latest commercial with wrap-dress-maven Diana von Furstenberg. Von Furstenberg will be the new face of Amex, with a print campaign shot by Annie Leibovitz (no stranger to shillery herself) set to run soon.

The commercial, directed by Oscar-nominated director Bennett Miller (Capote), takes a more meditative tone than the chaos of Tina Fey or Wes Anderson's Amex spots, which is to say they're still annoying—just in a different way. America Express, can you stop taking people whose talent we admire and having them to do your ridiculous ads? People we admire, can you stop taking untold amounts of cash for a couple days' worth ... oh, right.

"Women inspire me and I inspire them to be independent and free which is how I feel when I use my American Express Card," said Ms. Von Furstenberg of her decision to become involved with the campaign, adding that "American Express represents a sign of independence and freedom, and if you have your card, you can do anything." Now, maybe it's just because Radar packs a plebeian Visa if anything, but when we use our credit cards, we typically experience feelings other than "independence" and "freedom": These feelings include, but are not limited to, laziness, guilt, irresponsibility, and materialistic self-loathing.

And, with bad credit card debt set to spike for U.S. consumers in 2008, well, it's a stretch to buy the noble Ms. Von Furstenberg's talk about women feeling "confident" and "beautiful" over shots of snowy woods and patterned fabrics.