Andrew Sullivan is back from his Provincetown holliers, though for the benefit of recent readers we should note that he didn't take a break from his Sunday Times (London) column [link now particularly relevant since he's back on a Bell Curve rampage], meaning that he worked harder over his 4 week vacation than Dubya will over his five.
Anyway, with his usual impeccable sense of timing, he's declared a War on Sport-Utility Vehicles, something that those awful liberals have been on about since at least 12 September 2001, if not before -- such dissent at the time making these critics grist for the mill in Sullivan's notorious "fifth column" tirade against all those not aboard his and Dubya's vision of the GWOT.
But better late than never:
My anti-SUV ire always goes up in the summer, when I see these vast, bloated symbols of excess bulldozing down the narrow streets of Provincetown, pushing every bicyclist, pedestrian or small child out of their way. My only solace is thinking of how many of these SUV owners are pouring money away to keep their mobile homes on the road. Pity that same money goes to finance Islamist terror.
and he is looking for submissions on a good anti-SUV bumper sticker. But wait, we're not quite done with the inconsistent nature of all this, since not so long ago he handed a "Malkin Award" (the sentence must be entirely devised to insult; it should be completely devoid of originality; it must have at least two hoary, dead-as-a-Norwegian-parrot cliches; and it must assume that readers already agree with the writer. Arbitrary mean-spiritedness wins extra points.) for this:
MALKIN AWARD NOMINEE: "If you can't stomach the truths of what our soldiers are doing and how brutally and bloodily they're dying and in just what manner they have to kill those innocent Iraqi civilians in the name of BushCo's desperate lurch toward greed and power and Iraqi oil fields and empire, maybe you don't have the right to stick that little flag on your oil-sucking SUV." - Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle.
So has he now given a Malkin award to himself? Nevertheless, since we agree with the New Sully on SUVs, let's offer our own submission: How many kilometres per litre does your SUV get? Because all those Home Front Hummer drivers need to hear the news from today's Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd) -- the SUV is now big in France:
In the first six months of this year, sales of SUVs in France surged 17%, outpacing an 11% increase in sales of SUVs across Europe and the 5.6% rise in overall car sales in France, according to CCFA, the country's trade group for auto makers. SUVs now account for 5.2% of the cars sold in France, and the market for them there more than tripled from 1995 to 2004 ... Renault's SUV will be made by 70%-owned Korean partner Renault Samsung Motors Corp. and sold in Europe sporting Renault's diamond badge starting in late 2006. Nissan also will be involved with its development. Renault will unveil its sleek four-wheel-drive concept car, dubbed Egeus, at next month's Frankfurt Motor Show ... Peugeot-Citroën has teamed with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. to produce a replacement for Mitsubishi's Outlander.
How long before the converse effect kicks in and one of those Swatch cars starts to be seen by Americans as manly?
Anyway, with his usual impeccable sense of timing, he's declared a War on Sport-Utility Vehicles, something that those awful liberals have been on about since at least 12 September 2001, if not before -- such dissent at the time making these critics grist for the mill in Sullivan's notorious "fifth column" tirade against all those not aboard his and Dubya's vision of the GWOT.
But better late than never:
My anti-SUV ire always goes up in the summer, when I see these vast, bloated symbols of excess bulldozing down the narrow streets of Provincetown, pushing every bicyclist, pedestrian or small child out of their way. My only solace is thinking of how many of these SUV owners are pouring money away to keep their mobile homes on the road. Pity that same money goes to finance Islamist terror.
and he is looking for submissions on a good anti-SUV bumper sticker. But wait, we're not quite done with the inconsistent nature of all this, since not so long ago he handed a "Malkin Award" (the sentence must be entirely devised to insult; it should be completely devoid of originality; it must have at least two hoary, dead-as-a-Norwegian-parrot cliches; and it must assume that readers already agree with the writer. Arbitrary mean-spiritedness wins extra points.) for this:
MALKIN AWARD NOMINEE: "If you can't stomach the truths of what our soldiers are doing and how brutally and bloodily they're dying and in just what manner they have to kill those innocent Iraqi civilians in the name of BushCo's desperate lurch toward greed and power and Iraqi oil fields and empire, maybe you don't have the right to stick that little flag on your oil-sucking SUV." - Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle.
So has he now given a Malkin award to himself? Nevertheless, since we agree with the New Sully on SUVs, let's offer our own submission: How many kilometres per litre does your SUV get? Because all those Home Front Hummer drivers need to hear the news from today's Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd) -- the SUV is now big in France:
In the first six months of this year, sales of SUVs in France surged 17%, outpacing an 11% increase in sales of SUVs across Europe and the 5.6% rise in overall car sales in France, according to CCFA, the country's trade group for auto makers. SUVs now account for 5.2% of the cars sold in France, and the market for them there more than tripled from 1995 to 2004 ... Renault's SUV will be made by 70%-owned Korean partner Renault Samsung Motors Corp. and sold in Europe sporting Renault's diamond badge starting in late 2006. Nissan also will be involved with its development. Renault will unveil its sleek four-wheel-drive concept car, dubbed Egeus, at next month's Frankfurt Motor Show ... Peugeot-Citroën has teamed with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. to produce a replacement for Mitsubishi's Outlander.
How long before the converse effect kicks in and one of those Swatch cars starts to be seen by Americans as manly?