WashPost Interviewer Gives SUV Owners Little Respect

In the July 22 Washington Post, writer Monica Hesse interviewed Ron DeFore of the SUV Owners of America (SUVOA), for her Style section front-pager, "A Man Who Wants SUVs to Get More R-E-S-P-E-C-T."

But far from respect, Hesse's interview at turns shifted from an almost "Daily Show"-like mockery to an unqualified parroting of liberal talking points. You can find her interview here, but I found these three questions particularly to be cheap shots:

• Ever have any trouble sleeping at night?
• So the SUV owners you are trying to help don't realize that they need your help?
• Well, on your Web site,www.suvoa.com, some SUV owners seem a little self-absorbed. One person writes that he isgrateful for his SUV because when he fell asleep at the wheel and hit four other cars, he was able to walk away without a scratch. C'mon now.

First of all,can you imagine the first two questions being asked of someone from a left-wing environmental or "consumers" group, particularly groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the food police that have told us everything from two percent milk to movie theater popcorn butter is a medical nightmare waiting to happen.

Secondly, Hesse cleary cherry-picked her "self-absorbed" SUV owner example from a section of SUVOA's Web site entitled "Tell Us Your Story." But on that page, Web site visitors are invited to describe how driving an SUV helped them survive an auto accident.