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.

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.