SUV Foe Norman Lear Has 21-Car Garage

Newsmax ^ | January 9, 2003 | Carl Limbacher

[Paul Atreides]

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.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

There are plenty of other reasons to avoids SUVs like the plague. Most of them can be summed up in two words: crash compatibility. And when the legal weasels find a way to get in on that angle, the manufacturers and any owners involved in a crash better hold onto their wallets.

Crash compatibility is the best reason to get a large SUV. By that same legal logic, Yugo owners should fear the coming onslaught of lawsuits by "outgunned" scooter owners involved in the dreaded mismatch of motorcycle/subcompact car collisions.

[isthisnickcool]

I purchased a new SUV this past weekend. It seats 8 people but usually I'll be the only one driving it*. That's when I'm not driving my sedan that has been highly modified and can hit 160mph.

My machines have DVD players and XM radio and I like the tires to spin when I hit the gas.

*Soon to have 20 inch wheels, headers and cat backs, reprogrammed chip and supercharger.

[GunsareOK]

Heard on a report about the Detroit Auto Show that it has 1000 horsepower.

[Search4Truth]

Well he doesn't drive them all at one time!

[Paul Atreides]

I'm curious as to where these people were during the Clinton 90s, when SUVs were really gaining their popularity.

[steve-b]

Well, the SUV ads did work insofar as they exposed the inanity of the drug ads. However, while the former were no doubt inspired by the latter, I think they were intended at face value. In that, they failed miserably.

[Paul Atreides]

He also doesn't fuel them with vegetable peelings either!

[isthisnickcool]

There is a VERY good reason for self-employed people to drive an SUV that weighs more than 6000 Lbs.....

That's true and why we purchased the SUV.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Wow! I'd like one of those Kenworths. Would they really make one? I think I'd finally be able to take along with us everything the wife packs.

[kcvl]

Norman Lear's summer home, where poet Robert Frost once lived, is no remote retreat. The multi-building estate on a hillside in southern Vermont includes offices, a gym, a screening room, as well as spacious living quarters decorated in an American flag theme. Phone lines blink and intercoms buzz as Lear's business interests track him down.

Sitting comfortably in the expansive living room, wearing his trademark white sailor's cap as groundskeepers busily prepare for the weekend birthday celebration

[sheik yerbouty]

Everytime Huffington flaps her gums, she is spewing out hot greenhouse gases. Maybe she will reverse the flow and produce methane, and "bottle" it.

[Paul Atreides]

That was the first attack on suv's by the left: only people of substantial means get to buy them, so it is unfair and elitist that others should be made to feel bad because they cannot afford one. Apparently, the class envy didn't work.

[thetruckster]

I got this info from another, similar thread. If we don't buy from these guys, apparently we are supporting terrorists:

"The following companies import ZERO oil from the middle east:
"Citgo, Sunoco, Conoco, Sinclair, BP/Phillips, Hess.

"Since BP serves this area, Sunoco the northeast and Conoco the west, you can drive all over america and never buy one gallon of gas from them Islamic fellers."

Thank you, GailA.

I do know that Conoco is very active in Russia which is home to far more oil than ANWR.

[paguch]

A 24 car garage would use more energy for heating and cooling than my SUV. Don't tell me he does not heat and cool it. The Elite just want to tell us how to live so they can enjoy their wealth.

[kcvl]

In places like California, Mother Nature may pose an even bigger threat than cat burglars. Scott Reuter, owner of Exhibit Safety Services in Brentwood, Calif., recently spent three months earthquake-proofing producer Norman Lear's art collection. And one Los Angeles collector paid him $7,000 for a special "seismic base isolation device" -- previously found only in the J. Paul Getty Museum -- to protect a Dan Dailey glass sculpture.

[Paul Atreides]

Well, that is only natural. You see, he is more deserving than you or me. He cares more. He is more intellectual. He is superior. Therefore, you and I would not be deserving of such riches by mere virtue of hard work. We would give money to the wrong people. We would support the wrong candidates. We would support the wrong causes and charities. Norman Lear's America is one in which luxury is not for those who have worked for it, but for those who think in the correct manner.

[tractorman]

Al Franken is really starting to look like Herman Munster lately.
I saw him on - I think it was Donohue. What a hoot!
I love watching liberals spewing their idiotic tirades.

[paguch]

Arianna's address is arianna@ariannaonline.com Don't expect an answer. All the elites want from the common people is their money for their causes and obedience.

[IYAS9YAS]

I think the Yugo would still lose. I'd take my chances against one of them while riding a Vespa any day...