TV Ads Say S.U.V. Owners Support Terrorists

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 — Ratcheting up the debate over sport utility vehicles, new television commercials suggest that people who buy the vehicles are supporting terrorists. The commercials are so provocative that some television stations are refusing to run them.

Patterned after the commercials that try to discourage drug use by suggesting that profits from illegal drugs go to terrorists, the new commercials say that money for gas needed for S.U.V.'s goes to terrorists.

"This is George," a girl's voice says of an oblivious man at a gas station. "This is the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The screen then shows 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 S.U.V." The picture switches to a scene of armed terrorists in a desert. "And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his S.U.V."

A second commercial depicts a series of ordinary Americans saying things like: "I helped hijack an airplane"; "I gave money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country"; "What if I need to go off-road?"

At the close, the screen is filled with the words: "What is your S.U.V. doing to our national security?"

The two 30-second commercials are the brainchild of the author and columnist Arianna Huffington. Her target audience, she said, is Detroit and Congress, especially the Republicans and Democrats who last year voted against a bill, sponsored by Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, that would have raised fuel-efficiency standards.

Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said of Ms. Huffington, "Her opinion is out-voted every year by Americans who buy S.U.V.'s for their safety, comfort and versatility." He said that S.U.V.'s now account for 21 percent of the market.

In an interview, Senator Kerry distanced himself from the commercials. He said that rather than oppose S.U.V.'s outright, he believed they should be more efficient.

"I haven't seen these commercials," he said, "but anybody can drive as large an S.U.V. as they want, though it can be more efficient than it is today."

Ms. Huffington's group, which calls itself the Detroit Project, has bought almost $200,000 of air time for the commercials, to run from Sunday to Thursday. While the group may lose some viewers if stations refuse to run the advertisements, the message is attracting attention through news coverage.

The advertisements are to be broadcast on "Meet The Press," "Face the Nation" and "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and Washington.

But some local affiliates say they will not run them. At the ABC affiliate in New York, Art Moore, director of programming, said, "There were a lot of statements being made that were not backed up, and they're talking about hot-button issues."

Ms. Huffington said she got the idea for the commercials while watching the antidrug commercials, sponsored by the Bush administration. In her syndicated column, she asked readers if they would be willing to pay for "a people's ad campaign to jolt our leaders into reality."

She said she received 5,000 e-mail messages and eventually raised $50,000 from the public. Bigger contributors included Steve Bing, the film producer; Larry David, the comedian and "Seinfeld" co-creator; and Norman Lear, the television producer.

Here's a column of Huffington's from 2001:

Support Our Troops, Dump That SUV

by Arianna Huffington

On the way to my daughter's school this morning, I encountered the usual L.A. rush-hour road rally of elephantine sports utility vehicles, many flying American flags. Taking the cake was a massive SUV proudly sporting half a dozen--one on each window and two on the bumper. My first thought was, how patriotic! My second was, how much more patriotic it would be to trade in the gas-guzzling leviathan for something that sips, rather than chugs, at the gas pump.

Which, thinking globally and acting locally, is precisely what I've decided to do with mine.

Though I don't consider myself an automotive fashionista, I must admit I followed the thundering herd of protective parents unable to resist the allure of what is basically a comfy Sherman tank. My SUV, a Lincoln Navigator, was, I was told, the safest way to transport my kids. And, as an added bonus, I could haul around a decent-sized Girl Scout troop.

But now we're at war, right? A New War. Everything has changed, hasn't it? Perhaps in rhetoric. In practice, what are we being called to do for the war effort other than shop 'til we drop, eat out and visit Disney World?

Given that our ability to play hardball with nations that harbor terrorists is going to be seriously compromised by our foreign oil habit, shouldn't we be doing everything we can to reduce that dependence--starting, say, yesterday?

On Tuesday, the president ordered the government to boost its emergency stockpile of oil to "strengthen the long-term security of the United States."

But nothing is being done to heed Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham's warning that "reducing our nation's dependence on imported oil is crucial to our national energy security, now more than ever before."

On average, SUVs consume over 6 miles per gallon more than a family station wagon. No small difference when you consider that an improvement of just 3 mpg in autos nationwide would save 1 million barrels of oil per day.

On top of this, I have belatedly discovered that despite those TV ads showing them heroically scaling snow-capped mountains in a single bound, SUVs are actually risky to drive: four times more likely than cars to roll over in an accident and three times more likely to kill the occupants in a rollover.

Flag waving is great, but patriotic display is not a substitute for patriotic action. And the public is galvanized for action, just as it was during World War II. Back then, Americans answered their leaders' call for sacrifice in dozens of altruistic ways: they collected scrap metal to be refashioned as guns, planes, and tanks, planted 20 million vegetable "victory gardens," and made do with 3 gallons of gas a week. Just about what the average SUV devours on a few latte-hauling trips to Starbucks.

But when it comes to summoning the national resolve for shared sacrifice, W has been no FDR. There have been too many pep rallies and too few fireside chats. This president has the national ear, in a way few presidents ever have. The problem is, now that he's got our attention, he doesn't appear to have much to say.

His speech last week included a general call to serve our country by "mentoring a child, comforting the afflicted, housing those in need of shelter and a home." But his appeal lacked the kind of specificity that prods people out of their armchairs and into action. If the president had informed us, for instance, that 12 million children live in households where people have to skip meals to make ends meet or that there are a million homeless children in this country on any given day, then Americans would be far more likely to become what he dubbed "a Sept. 11 volunteer."

Of course, when it comes to acting on our patriotism, we don't have to wait for our leaders. If they won't lead, we can just step around them. And when it comes to the vital issue of energy policy, it appears that we'll have to.

As well as giving up our SUVs-- or, even better, switching to hybrid gas-and-electric cars that currently get up to 64 mpg--we can all make simple adjustments to wean our country from the foreign oil teat, even if our leaders are too dazed by the energy and auto industry lobbies to guide us.

We can, for example, make sure our tires are fully inflated, reducing gas consumption by 2 percent, we can slow down to 65 miles per hour, reducing highway gas consumption by 15 percent, and we can stop idling our cars in drive-through window and school carpool lanes. And at home we can help conserve fuel by turning thermostats down, weather-stripping doors and windows, buying energy-efficient fluorescent lightbulbs, and unplugging cell phone chargers and hair dryers.

We can't go on consuming 25 percent of the world's oil while being only 5 percent of the global population. At least not if we want to get serious about putting the screws to any number of oil-rich and terrorist-friendly nations.

Laura Bush gave voice to a widely held sentiment when she said that Sept. 11 has made us "more determined and prepared, wiser and in many ways better." Not because of the number of flags attached to car windows or news anchors' lapels but because of the willingness the American people have shown to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to meet the challenge to our way of life.

Frankly, saying hasta la vista to my 13 mpg Navigator and hello to a 23 mpg Volvo V70 station wagon is hardly a sacrifice. But it's a start. Maybe I'll plant a victory garden in the backseat.

Arianna Huffington

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