SUV Foe Norman Lear Has 21-Car Garage

Leading Hollywood liberal Norman Lear, who helped fund TV ads hitting the air this week charging that gas-guzzling SUV owners are actively funding terrorists, isn't much of an energy conservationist himself, judging by the 21-car garage he added to his Los Angeles estate five years ago.

The SUV foe's garage is "built to hold 21 cars and stands 45 feet tall," according to a Los Angeles Times report on the environmentally offensive structure. "Lear's neighbors in Sullivan Canyon contend that the structure, complete with a tennis court atop, was built in violation of city height restrictions and with misrepresentations about its size," the paper added.

"Lear's parking garage has ruined the aesthetics of the wooded canyon and blocked [his neighbors'] views," said the Times, which described Sullivan Canyon as "a quiet enclave that abuts state parkland."

"We're going to have this aircraft carrier deck out there. It's incredibly ugly," complained Lear neighbor Gene Albrecht. "It looks like a helicopter landing pad," said Rob Deutschman, another resident who opposed the SUV hater's exhaust-belching structure.

A November 2002 LA Times report said that Lear's garage held 24 cars, though it's unclear whether the additional parking space means Lear had unloaded a few of his larger gas guzzlers or enlarged his garage with three new stalls.

The anti-SUV ads bankrolled in part by Lear were put together by political gadfly Arianna Huffington, who calls her attack on gas-guzzlers "the Detroit Project." Narrated by a young girl, the commercials attempt to paint SUV owners as aiders and abettors of the 9/11 terrorists.

"This is George," the girl begins. "This is the gas that George bought for his SUV." The screen flashes a map of the Middle East. "These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV." Cut to video of armed terrorists in a desert. "And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV."

A second Huffington-Lear ad taunts, "What is your SUV doing to our national security?" according to the Chicago Tribune.

On Wednesday, Huffington got into an on-air tussle with nationally syndicated radio talker Sean Hannity, who called her on the carpet for her own gas-guzzling ways and whose producer, James Grisham, first unearthed the 1998 LA Times report on Lear.

"Arianna Huffington, you were married to a very wealthy man, you're a very wealthy woman yourself," noted Hannity. "How many private planes have you flown in, in your life?"

"What does this have to do with the SUV ads," the energy conservation crusader sputtered, before admitting, "I have ridden private planes. They're not planes that I own. They're planes that were going somewhere in any case."

Hannity also asked Huffington her how large her California mansion was and how much oil she used to heat and cool it, to which the political gadfly responded, "That's none of your business."

After Huffington refused to detail any more of her personal energy consumption habits, Hannity unearthed a 1997 LA Times report revealing that her California home tipped the scales at 9,000 square feet.

NBC's Dan Lothian and Huffington:

Lothian began: "On the crowded highway of giant SUVs,
columnist Arianna Huffington took an exit, trading in her
gas-guzzling Lincoln Navigator for a 50-mile-per-gallon Toyota
Prius hybrid."
Arianna Huffington: "Now I was after all driving that SUV
without connecting the dots, without being conscious of the impact
it was having."
Lothian: "Figuring no one else was connecting the dots either,
Huffington hooked up with some Hollywood heavyweights to produce
three TV spots with a high level of shock value. In this spot, the
evolution of George's gas purchase leads to the creation of
terrorists."
Clip of ad: "-get money from those countries every time George
fills up his SUV."
Huffington: "We need to be equating driving gas-guzzling SUVs
with supporting our oil addiction and our dependence on nations
that are supporting terrorism."
Clip of ad, person #1: "I helped our enemies develop weapons
of mass destruction."
Clip of ad, person #2: "I helped hijack an airplane."
Lothian: "The so-called Detroit Project is a parody of the
edgy government-supported anti-drug ads. The in-your-face
campaign, so far supported by small donations, is only partially
aimed at consumers. The real targets? Oil companies and their
dependence on foreign suppliers and automakers who build the SUVs
that guzzle gas. Washington, D.C., and Detroit are two of the four
markets where the spots will air, an attempt to influence
lawmakers and the auto industry. But is the premise from tank to
terrorist a stretch?

Huffington's Web page: http://www.ariannaonline.com/suv

A key point overlooked by the media: The argument of the anti-
drug ads is that even casual drug users support terrorism, that it
isn't how much you support terrorism through drug use but that you
do. By that logic, driving a 50 mpg car using gas imported from
the Middle East is no less bad than driving a 15 mpg truck, to say
nothing of how an SUV owner who only drives 15 miles per day uses
less gas than a hybrid owner who drives 70 miles per day.

But on Wednesday's The View, the ABC daytime show, Joy Behar
had the best line. After former CBS News reporter Meredith Viera
ludicrously described Huffington as "the conservative author and
columnist," a perspective Huffingon long ago abandoned in her
successful quest for media approval, Behar quipped: "I'd like to
make a pledge today: If I see a terrorist in the Hamptons I'm
going to run him down with my SUV."

http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030109.asp Thursday January 9, 2003 (Vol. Eight; No. 5)

There is a VERY good reason for self-employed people to drive an SUV that weighs more than 6000 Lbs: these vehicles are not subject to the luxury auto limits as imposed by the IRS.

You know, the rules that say any car over $15,000 is a 'luxury' vehicle, which means your annual depreciation on the vehicle is limited.

So, go ahead and buy that $50,000 Escalade this year. You'll be able to depreciate it at 20% this year, 32% next year, etc. (as allowed by MACRS).

Check this out with your tax advisor: you'll be glad you did.

Funny, my gas comes from the station down the block in Nampa, Idaho. He gets it from the distributor. The distributor gets it from the wholeseller who may or may not be a position holder at the fuel terminal in Boise, Idaho. The fuel terminal gets its fuel from the fuel pipeline that comes from the refinery in Salt Lake City, Utah. Most, if not all, of the fuel created at the refinery in Salt Lake City, Utah is from DOMESTIC CRUDE. What a bunch of B.S.

Sure would like a 24-car garage, though. Lots of room for toys.

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