Pot, Meet Kettle

Michelle Malkin has a great scoop on Arianna Huffington, the woman who once claimed that SUV drivers enable terrorists, and her mode of transportation to and from the Sierra Club's national summit in San Francisco. No, she didn't take a bike. Or a hanglider. Or even a hybrid. No, she rode to the summit a great big Chevy Suburban. Malkin's follow-up with the Sierra Club is even funnier...

I interviewed Sierra Club national spokesman Eric Antebi by phone yesterday, who confirmed that the group sent the SUV. He blamed an "outside contractor," which he declined to name, for the rather dissonant choice of vehicle.

"It is ridiculous," Antebi admitted. "It's something we regret and we've learned our lesson."

Curious, I asked Antebi whether any of the staff at the Sierra Club headquarters owned and drove SUVs. He stumbled and said the group didn't keep track of who drove what. It's "a personal decision," he explained. "People drive different cars for different reasons."

Well, um, exactly. Now, wouldn't it be nice if these anti-SUV green busybodies took the same attitude towards the rest of us and left our car choices alone?!

I don't drive an SUV, but that's a choice I make (much to the chagrin of my wife, who's far more of an environmentalist than yours truly). I make this choice because driving around the parking garage at my office in an SUV would guarantee that the vehicle would quickly receive more than its share of dents and dings, and I like driving my Honda Accord coupe, since it gives a smooth ride and costs less to maintain and fuel. Besides, I'll probably be stuck driving an SUV at some point in my life (that or a minivan).

But that's my choice, and it's why Malkin's got it exactly right with her note above. I actually enjoy people trying to shame others with rhetoric about how driving SUVs helps terrorist-financing countries, but that's because it's generally silly crap that amuses me and fails to mean anything. For example, our dependance on foreign oil also stems from our failure to fully embrace and utilize nuclear power (by way of full disclosure, my dad worked in the industry as an engineer, so perhaps I'm slightly biased). I don't see the folks complaining about SUVs screaming about the failure to build nuclear power plants in this country, yet both contribute to our dependance on foreign oil. Sure, some may consider nuclear power unsafe, but I'm sure there are plenty of parents driving SUVs who would find it unsafe to try and cart four kids around, with one not wearing a seatbelt in the back of the station wagon.

As for the Sierra Club utilizing the national security argument, it's still idiotic. If someone discovered oil wells in the middle of Kansas that rivalled the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, the Sierra Club would oppose their development on environmental grounds, not national security grounds, and still think you're a horrible human being if you choose to buy an SUV.

Do we need to consider our reliance on foreign oil and how it impacts our national security? Yes. But hyperbole about SUVs isn't going to fix our energy policy. To be fair, neither will any of the energy policies passed by Congress.