Seriously?

Good work, Washington Post opinion section for publishing this hard-hitting, fact-based piece by Matthew DeBord titled "Hummer We Need Thee"

When General Motors announced that it would subject its Hummer division to what in the automotive business is known as a "review," you could hear the tree huggers, the unreconstructed hippies, the postmodern Greens, Al Gore's organic peanut gallery, every single customer at the Pasadena Whole Foods and the United Prius Owners of America shove aside their alfalfa sprouts and commence clapping. [...]

It takes a certain kind of man -- it's almost always the owner of a Y chromosome -- to take a gander at the Hummer, in all its broad, burly, paramilitary gas-guzzling glory, and see himself behind the wheel, striking fear and loathing in the hearts of ecologically sensitive motorists. Oprah does not drive a Hummer. But Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a proud owner. As has Sylvester Stallone. The Hummer appeals to large men of even larger ego, men who aren't worried about their carbon footprint and believe that obstacles in life are meant not just to be surmounted but squashed flat. They like owning the beast because, when it bears down on lesser rides on the freeway, those lesser rides -- even the Teutonic triple threat of Porsche/BMW/Mercedes -- get out of the way. Every once in while, you see a little guy clambering out of a Hummer, painfully in need of a ladder, and you realize that it can also be viewed as a $57,000 ticket to enlarged self-esteem.

What kind of value do the Post's editors think this kind of thing is adding to the public conversation? The Post opinion pages are way less entertaining than Gossip Girl summer reruns or the copy of Tintin in Tibet I picked up earlier today (somehow missed reading that one when I was a kid) and if they're not going to be informative either then what are they for?

Comments

Jeez, you never saw Tintin in Tibet as a kid? That was my introduction to Tibet, land of floating lamas and friendly yetis. It's also a quietly emotional, moving story about friendship as Tintin risks everything to save his old friend Chang Chong-Chen, on the basis of nothing more than his intuition that he's still alive. Great stuff.

Posted by Hank Scorpio | July 12, 2008 10:16 PM

Everytime I see a Hummer, I think of two things:

a) the guy who buys that has a tiny cock and he has been laughed at by more than one woman when he dropped his pants, and,

b) tens of thousands of American soldiers have died or been maimed to defend the right of that man who can't even get his tiny pecker up to its proud, erect length of 2 and a half inches without a fistfull of vitamin V to drive that 8 miles a gallon monster.

Someday our decendents, if any, will curse us for burning all of that precious petroleum instead of doing useful things with it.

Posted by calipygian | July 12, 2008 10:23 PM

I always thought the appeal of the hummer was a kind of selfish trade-off: while it might increase the odds somewhat that its pilot will be the cause of an accident (due to its size and braking resistance), it greatly reduced the odds that its pilot would end up as the fatality if that accident actually occurred.

Posted by gerontion | July 12, 2008 10:24 PM

Increasingly, WaPo exists to soothe the nostalgia we all feel for the lively, uncensored opinion pieces in our college newspapers.

Especially if we went to Dartmouth.

Posted by Ted | July 12, 2008 10:28 PM

In light of the fact that the editorial was clearly a light-hearted, updated version of RealMenDontEatQuiche, and considering that many of those in L.A. who drive Hummers are members of ethnic minorities, would Mr. Yglesias care to amend his remarks?

Posted by TLB | July 12, 2008 10:29 PM

Is this the same Yglesias who wrote this post?

The individual carbon footprint of any particular activity under the current policy regime just isn't relevant -- the point is that the current policy regime is bad and needs to be changed. When you see the Democratic Party aiming for a carbon neutral convention, it does much less to improve the environment than it does to define environmentalism in terms of an unrealistic standard of behavior that few individuals will reach, while rending huge swathes of the progressive community vulnerable to spurious charges of hypocrisy from the right.

I'm having a wee bit of trouble reconciling the two.

Posted by southpaw | July 12, 2008 10:30 PM

What is he saying? You need to be a certain height to drive a certain car? Doesn't make sense to me. You'd have to be pretty short not to have a lot of trouble stepping into an SUV.

Why doesn't he think the 6' 4" guy is driving it to boosts his self-esteem-- maybe because he's stupid and driving a big car is the only way to make himself feel like he's an impressive, successful person?

People as big as Arnold Schwarzenegger seem to be for the most part less smart, while examples become wildly successful like Arnold and Jesse Ventura seem to be the very few exceptions.

Sorry, the Hummer isn't any different a status symbol than any other expensive car-- except that it's a ridiculous waste of money / gas, so when the decision to buy a status-symbol type car is a bad when, if it's a Hummer that's bought, it's extra bad.

Posted by Swan | July 12, 2008 10:34 PM

What is he saying? You need to be a certain height to drive a certain car? Doesn't make sense to me. You'd have to be pretty short not to have a lot of trouble stepping into an SUV.

Why doesn't he think the 6' 4" guy is driving it to boosts his self-esteem-- maybe because he's stupid and driving a big car is the only way to make himself feel like he's an impressive, successful person?

People as big as Arnold Schwarzenegger seem to be for the most part less smart, while examples become wildly successful like Arnold and Jesse Ventura seem to be the very few exceptions.

Sorry, the Hummer isn't any different a status symbol than any other expensive car-- except that it's a ridiculous waste of money / gas, so that when the decision to buy a status-symbol type car is a bad one for a particular person to make, if it's a Hummer that's bought, it's extra bad.

Posted by Swan | July 12, 2008 10:36 PM

Ah, nasty macho reptilian tribalism not-really-disguised with a light coating of purported cleverness. Matthew DeBord clearly aspires to be the male Maureen Dowd.

Posted by James Gary | July 12, 2008 10:41 PM

Oops-- I thought I cancelled it in time to correct a typo and double-checked to see that the original comment hadn't been posted, but it looks like Matt's site holds comments for a few minutes (and a couple of refreshes) and then posts them. Weird.

Anyway, the second version doesn't have the typo (in the last paragraph).

I always thought the appeal of the hummer was a kind of selfish trade-off: while it might increase the odds somewhat that its pilot will be the cause of an accident (due to its size and braking resistance), it greatly reduced the odds that its pilot would end up as the fatality if that accident actually occurred.

Without spending all that money on a Hummer and gas, a person could probably just do basic things like:

(1) don't hurry, (2) always look where you're going, (3) don't speed up to beat a light when you're going to do something like turn the corner at the light or make a sharp curve after the light, (4) always wear your seatbelt, and (5) always check that you have your headlights on at night,

and avoid most chances of a dangerous accident.

Tag on a few more things like "put distance between yourself and cars you spot driving abnormally on the road," "don't take risks while driving" and "don't get angry" and you can avoid most fender-benders, too.

Posted by Swan | July 12, 2008 10:45 PM

Satire, methinks.

Posted by Hlem | July 12, 2008 10:48 PM

You'd have to be pretty short not to have a lot of trouble stepping into an SUV.

Should just be "...short to have a lot of trouble." Blame jocks who don't like that I made a couple of anti-jock jokes tonight and who are getting revenge- I sure don't know how software works to hack someone else's computer and to type stuff on other people's webforms, but malicious types clearly have it.

Anyway, to me it sounds like the tradeoff is if you don't get the Hummer, you don't get to look like you want to. Basically getting a Hummer is like a bulemic chick puking up her lunch every day. That's how practical it is.

Posted by Swan | July 12, 2008 10:50 PM

Satire, methinks.

No, it's not satire-- it's what happens when one of those kids who took steroids in high school grows up to get a better job than "janitor" or "shift manager."

It's psywar against the American people to make us think we should all be a bunch of goons or look up to goons. They miss high school and they want to turn the whole country, the adult world, into a place where people respect you for being big or being able to push people around without getting in trouble, instead of, you know, being intelligent, fair, and just, or having highly developed, marketable skills.

Posted by Swan | July 12, 2008 10:56 PM

Satire, methinks.

Dude I read the thing three times searching, searching for confirmation that this is the case. But I really can't find any evidence that it's the case, as mind-boggling as that is.

Posted by Freddie | July 12, 2008 10:56 PM

saw this earlier via the oildrum. I kept waiting for the punchline. America needs Hummers like 13 year olds need boob jobs. What America needs is for people like the author to he objects of ridicule and scorn. I'm not even sure Bill Kristol could churn out something this stupid. That article makes me ashamed to be an American, male, and the same species as the author.

Posted by roboticghost | July 12, 2008 10:57 PM

Satire, methinks.

Come to think of it, it is a pretty snarky title. Maybe its a cryptic cry for help by Fred Hiatt, George Will or Charles Krauthammer, all old guys in desperate need of a hummer.

Posted by calipygian | July 12, 2008 11:11 PM

You'd have to be pretty short... to have a lot of trouble stepping into an SUV.

Dunno... I'm 5'6", which isn't all that short for a female, and I still always stumble pretty badly getting out of my friend's Escalade. Getting in isn't too much trouble, but it's a damned steep descent from a very high seat.

Posted by latts | July 12, 2008 11:21 PM

I once saw someone in a fuck me yellow hummer that had a "save the reefs" license plate...

Apparently he missed the memo that the reefs are dying because of the rise in ocean temperature.

Posted by brenna | July 12, 2008 11:29 PM

Not to belabor this, but I thought Matt made a good point in his older post, which seems to have been lost here. The relative badness of one particular product like the hummer doesn't matter. What matters is enacting a policy regime that puts a price on misbehavior. As Ezra said:

The more Democrats present their environmentalism as a call for personal austerity or individual rectitude, the less likely they are to succeed. But that's not what a cap and trade proposal does. It's a market-based attempt to accurately price carbon in products, so that the economic incentives naturally point in a direction that doesn't end up scorching the planet. It's not about banning meat or keeping people from driving. It's just about eliminating the silent subsidy that makes meat, gas, and other elements of a carbon-intensive lifestyle look much cheaper than they really are.

In other words, let the fanboys have their hummers so long as they're willing to pay for it.

Posted by southpaw | July 12, 2008 11:32 PM

I'm guessing Matt DeBord's pecker is the size of a thimble. I feel sorry for his wife.

Posted by Owen | July 12, 2008 11:50 PM

But seriously, despite Matt LeBord's inability to satisfy his wife, this Economist article has some good news: Ford looks like it will soon be importing its European design for cars getting about 50 mpg: http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10808848

Posted by Owen | July 13, 2008 12:01 AM

Sly "Napoleon" Stallone is 5'7"... And he injects HGH.

Posted by Pete | July 13, 2008 12:11 AM

Somewhat off-topic tangent: why is it just accepted that claiming that a man has a small penis is an insult? Not only is it assumed that having a small penis is a defect, but it's assumed that having a small penis also makes a man evil -- so if you see a man doing something inconsiderate or destructive, you can say "ah. That man must have a small penis." Is there any evidence that small penises lead to antisocial behavior? Perhaps we could measure the penis size of convicted criminals and see if they're significantly smaller than those of the general populace? Okay, I jest (although seriously I doubt there'd be a significant difference).

Still, it kind of bothers me that there seems to be an unquestioned assumption -- not just on generally progressive blogs, but even on explicitly feminist ones that one would expect to be opposed to that sort of thing -- that "Male N has a small penis!" is an acceptable insult. None of them would use "flat-chested" as an insult toward a woman of whose actions they disapproved.

Posted by Julian Elson | July 13, 2008 12:35 AM

I'm no huge fan of Hummers, but the small pecker and low self-esteem assumptions are really juvenile and idiotic. Driving a Hummer doesn't mean you are more or less masculine than anyone else.

I could just as easily allege that people who drive 10 year old compact cars are intentionally lowering expectations so girls will be pleasantly surprised at their small to average attributes.

By the way, why does the author assume the little guy has low self-esteem? Clearly Matthew DeBord disrespects him for no reason other than his size, but that doesn't mean he disrespects himself.

The article and comments disagree on the merits of Hummers but have a couple of important things in common - judgmentalism and snobbery.

Posted by Doug | July 13, 2008 12:37 AM

"Still, it kind of bothers me that there seems to be an unquestioned assumption -- not just on generally progressive blogs, but even on explicitly feminist ones that one would expect to be opposed to that sort of thing -- that "Male N has a small penis!" is an acceptable insult."

It's not an insult per se - a lot of women report that men who are poorly endowed go out of their way to please their partner, and vice versa.

The insult is that "small" men feel a great deal of self-doubt and insecurity, for no rational reason, and therefore go out of their way to buy things they think will impress women - Corvettes, Hummers, etc - in an effort to "make up for" their supposed insecurities. Thus, the buyers of such things get such a stigma opposed to them, as a large rationale for buying such things is supposedly a desire among such men to make up for their natural failures, as it may or may not be.

In reality, some people are self-confident, and realize such physical features matter very little in terms of satisfying women or anything else. Some others have been laughed at, and spend their whole lives, and a lot of money, trying to make up for it.

So it goes.

Posted by Adam | July 13, 2008 12:55 AM

Yes, southpaw, the point that whizzed over this "woe to America for the Hummer is dead" writer's head is that the only thing that's causing GM to kill it is... nobody wants to buy a gasoline-chugging ur-SUV when they have to fill its tank at $4 per gallon.

The SUV craze was the absolute most nonsensical vehicle buying behavior ever seen. 95% of these purportedly-offroad vehicles will never get their polished wheels further off-road than a gravel parking lot. They are both less spacious and less efficient than a similarly-sized minivan. The only rational need for an SUV is for people who actually need and use its unique off-road capabilities.

I have absolutely zero sympathy for any of these suburbanites who bought a 15-mpg Expedition or Escalade or Tahoe thinking that gas would remain at $1.50 a gallon indefinitely. Their choice, their loss. And it's Detroit's loss, too, because the Big Three collectively spent the last decade in the exact same state of denial.

Posted by Travis Mason-Bushman | July 13, 2008 12:59 AM

calipygian:
George Will and Kraphammer are ready for the retirement home. Fred Hiatt isn't that old.

Pete:
Don't forget to add porn star(You do remember that, right?) to that list.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | July 13, 2008 1:00 AM

Now here's the weird thing -- I'm pretty sure I know DeBord, and I seem to remember him being something of a bicycle activist.

Posted by Wrongshore | July 13, 2008 1:37 AM

I think the biggest problem with all big SUVs is that you can't see through them from the car behind. So they're dangerous to follow on a crowded freeway - you have to open a larger distance than you would when following a real car, wasting scarce road space. The SUV's fuel cost is the driver's problem.

If the Hummer got 40 MPG it would be just as irritating.

Posted by eb | July 13, 2008 1:39 AM

What kind of burly man uses the phrase "teutonic triple threat", or words for that matter?

Albeback.

The original Hummer (and Hum-V) used a lot a stock parts making it cheap to build and maintain. Then it became a luxury car, then shrunk twice. About now, the name needs changing to Bummer.

Posted by tomj | July 13, 2008 1:41 AM

Regarding the small penis - big car issue, wouldn't it be considered weird and rude if we said that women who drive SUVs have small breasts? It ain't like people are working for their penis size.

Posted by Mike | July 13, 2008 1:55 AM

"The Hummer appeals to large men of even larger ego"

Actually, the ubiquitous Hummer 2 isn't for large men. I sat in one at an auto show and my head banged against the ceiling and my knees against the dashboard. The MiniCooper has better head and leg room than the giant Hummer 2.

Posted by Steve Sailer | July 13, 2008 1:55 AM

Tintin in Tibet was my favorite as a kid. It's all about friendship!

Posted by Teet | July 13, 2008 2:05 AM

Eek. Small cock jokes on the Atlantic site... And one (at least one) play on the word "Hummer" as "fellatio." Pretty sad, and worse that it's delivered as a "boy oh boy do those conservatives need blow-jobs" bit.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is germane to ask what sort of masculinity issues a man who drives a giant, militarized, ugly-ass car has. There is also the money-flashing issue, as in "Yeah, I can afford mileage this bad." So don't-get-me-wrong, in sum: anyone who buys a Hummer is straight-up un-sane.

But cock jokes? Look, the rest of the internet sucks. There are assloads of places for inane commentary, but here, we should reach a little more. I'm fine with crass language. Note my use of 'assloads' in this very paragraph. I'm just saying, this website has been around for 151 years! Thoreau posted here! Make the allusion subtle and clever and worthy of our illustrious forebears. Don't just say, "Bet that guy has a small penis." Make me think. This should be like Word Fugitives, found on the last page of the analogue website, where I at least get to sit back and reflect about what the hell you mean. Then if I read something like, "PhalluS-U-V," I'll think, "OK, that's probably a play on penis envy. Still not very funny. But at least he made me think with my mind, man..."

Otherwise, yeah. I am not keen on Hummers either. It's like a pinky ring for your entire body. Take care, fellas.

Posted by Dennis | July 13, 2008 2:20 AM

When you google the guy you get hits at The Nation and Boston Phoenix, I'm thinking a poor attempt at Satire

Posted by eric k | July 13, 2008 2:34 AM

Is it just me, or does the NYT's big front page story on the growth & problems with Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac concentrated in detail on Republicans analyzing the Clinton-era problems of the agency, while pretty much skipping 2000 - 2008 with vague summary?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/business/13lend.html

After detailing by name each Democratic lobbyist and director for the entire 1990s, here is what we get for the last 8 years:

From 1990 to 2000, as each company’s stock grew more than 500 percent and top executives earned tens of millions of dollars, much criticism appeared on opinion pages of newspapers, in reports by free-market research groups and in Congressional testimony. Much of it was sponsored by a loose coalition of Washington lobbyists and consultants who were paid to portray Fannie and Freddie as too big and risky.

Ultimately, what most hurt the companies was the failure of home buyers to pay off subprime and other risky mortgages that were packaged into bonds and sold to investors by Wall Street banks like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Citigroup, with Fannie and Freddie playing a lesser role. But they are suffering from the reverberations of the foreclosure wave, as the value of their mortgage assets declines along with home prices everywhere.

What I gather, then, from the NYT article, is that during the 1990s, Democratic lobbyists ignored sage Republican & free market advice and grew these institutions in the wrong ways.

But, in the past 7.5 years, they suffered from these external factors they couldn't help.

???

Posted by El Cid | July 13, 2008 7:10 AM

I found the reference to Pasadena odd... Like, that's where you'd go to buy the hummer. Personally, I would have gone with "Portland Whole Foods".

Posted by thompsaj | July 13, 2008 7:18 AM

men who aren't worried about their carbon footprint and believe that obstacles in life are meant not just to be surmounted but squashed flat.

Over the past year, the man with the largest carbon footprint in America is actually a woman, HIllary Clinton. She chartered more jets, plus had her Secret Service retinue all though the season. Barack Obama? Second. Though he only has one mansion, vs. McCains 4, he had the big bucks for large jets while McCain was so broke he was taking commercial flights in economy class last summer and fall, with one aid. Actually, Gore's footprint is bigger than McCains, so was Bush's. In a good year, the sitting President should be Carbon King - but few people really want Dubya to visit.

Posted by chris ford | July 13, 2008 7:19 AM

In light of the fact that the editorial was clearly a light-hearted, updated version of RealMenDontEatQuiche, and considering that many of those in L.A. who drive Hummers are members of ethnic minorities, would Mr. Yglesias care to amend his remarks?

Just yesterday you were bawwing that someone went off-topic in the comments section, yet here you are manhandling the conversation towards your fave bugbear.

While I initially thought it rich that you were complaining about such an ephemeral transgression, I at least expected you to have enough self-awareness to avoid that same action for at least a post or two.

I suppose monomania has no time for self-awareness - you prove that daily.

Posted by really? | July 13, 2008 8:42 AM

How about a little math?

A Hummer gets about 12 MPG. So what??

A Hummer costs a lot of money.

If your Hummer cost $60K and will be worth $10K after driving it 100,000 miles then the car cost you 50 cents a mile. Repairs and maintenence cost about 15 cents a mile. If you are in an expensive state then your insurance can easily cost 10 cents a mile.

So before gas, you are up to 75 cents a mile.

So if you get 12 MPG. At $2.40 a gallon you pay 20 cents a mile. At $4.80 a gallon you pay 40 cents a mile.

SO, adding it all up, cheap gas means you pay 95 cents a gallon. Expensive gas means you pay 105 cents a gallon.

If you double the price of gas then the cost of owning a stupid car like the Hummer barely goes up 10%

Posted by neil willson | July 13, 2008 8:49 AM

and you realize that it can also be viewed as a $57,000 ticket to enlarged self-esteem.

Actually, if I had $57,000 in spare change lying around right now, I would get a Morgan.

But then I'm a hopeless minority, so I suppose I should stop whining, stop having hissy fits, be sensitive, be enlightened, and otherwise readjust my attitude.

Oh well...

Posted by Duncan Kinder | July 13, 2008 9:02 AM

It started with the jarringly inappropriate punning headlines decades ago. After the "if you don't get it, you don't get it" campaign, it was Katie bar the door. Nowadays, the reason the Post exists is to publish clever middle school pieces like this. It is the "journalism" - full of misdirection, elision, and flat out lying - which is the filler.

Posted by mflehman | July 13, 2008 9:18 AM

People forget that before Watergate the Washington Post was not really part of the national conversation - it was considered just another fairly crappy and provincial regional paper. It wasn't even given the respect of, say, the Boston Globe or the SF Chronicle. Clearly over the last 10 years the WP has simply begun reverting to type. It's time for thinkers and decision-makers to understand that the Post is, like Time Magazine, a formerly middle brow source of news and opinion that has really become irrelevant in the 21st century. If I were you, MY, I'd certainly cancel my subscription.

Posted by vanya | July 13, 2008 9:34 AM

"wouldn't it be considered weird and rude if we said that women who drive SUVs have small breasts? It ain't like people are working for their penis size."

Why do people think breast-size and penis size are comparable issues? They're not. They're not even comparable organs. There really is no good analogy for the role penis-size plays with men. Small breasts are even viewed positively by many men - small breasted women tend to be viewed, even if subconsciously, as more intelligent and less frivolous. Large breasted women get stereotyped as either floozies or mama-figures. A woman trying to get taken seriously in the business world, academia or politics is probably a lot better off with a b-cup. And a woman who really wants bigger breasts has plenty of cosmetic options. I don't think woman have to "compensate" the way some men clearly think they do. A man with a small penis basically has to live with a secret shame - that may be completely in his head and not even empirically true. But it does seem to lead many men to stupid behavior.

Posted by vanya | July 13, 2008 9:48 AM

But cock jokes? Look, the rest of the internet sucks. There are assloads of places for inane commentary, but here, we should reach a little more. I'm fine with crass language. Note my use of 'assloads' in this very paragraph. I'm just saying, this website has been around for 151 years! Thoreau posted here!

I think if 90 percent of the population thought "Well there goes a selfish, short-dicked man" every time a Hummer went by, Thoreau would whole heartedly approve.

Posted by calipygian | July 13, 2008 10:05 AM

But cock jokes? Look, the rest of the internet sucks. There are assloads of places for inane commentary, but here, we should reach a little more. I'm fine with crass language. Note my use of 'assloads' in this very paragraph. I'm just saying, this website has been around for 151 years! Thoreau posted here!

I think if 90 percent of the population thought "Well there goes a selfish, short-dicked man" every time a Hummer went by, and that got said men out of Hummers and into Prii, Thoreau would whole heartedly approve.

Posted by calipygian | July 13, 2008 10:05 AM

I don't think woman have to "compensate" the way some men clearly think they do.

No offense, but you clearly haven't talked with many, especially younger, women about such intimate matters - otherwise you would know that this is a huge source of insecurity for many.

And this whole small penis business is rather circular and doesn't make much sense: P

People ridiculing men for allegedly trying to compensate for their penis size either believe that it is indeed a defect, in which case they're ignorant idiots. Or they don't believe it's a defect and criticize only the act of compensating, but in doing so they merrily perpetuate the myth that it is indeed a defect.

Posted by novakant | July 13, 2008 10:11 AM

I believe another factor in the Hummer's rise & fall was that for a while we basically subsidized small business owners to buy them, or any other vehicle which weighed over 6500 lbs and was purchased new, as they could write up all or nearly all the price of the vehicle off of their taxes.

Not only have gas prices risen, but that tax subsidy has been trimmed. Might be worth a mention.

I still think the column is mainly about GM making boring vehicles, and, sorry, the new Camaro isn't that fascinating but it's a million times more interesting than a big truck. GM, for its part, is reportedly betting the farm on the fairly new Camaro-looking electric Volt vehicle, which also makes the Hummer seem like an old dump truck.

Posted by El Cid | July 13, 2008 11:08 AM

I think this is an attempt a parody. Last November, a Matthew DeBord wrote an article in the Dallas Morning News about the urban utility of Zipcar and Flexcar:

Matthew DeBord: Unchain yourself from that costly vehicle

The personal automobile may continue to have a place of pride in the driveway, but it won’t be at the top of the food chain anymore. Transportation will finally achieve true mass distribution. It will become a commodity. And in the end, we will have car sharing, whatever becomes of it, to thank for cracking the code.

Posted by beep52 | July 13, 2008 11:30 AM

El Cid: Saw your 7:10 post, and found it not surprising (who could have seen a blame game coming??!) but pathetic if that is truly what the argument will be. Not that I would be surprised at that either. A Republican controlled Congress for a majority of those years in the 90's, and a republican executive branch for only 2 years before that, means everybody's hands are bloody.

Not that I have to tell you, but I despair at the f**king time wasted and ink spent on that bullshit, unless the point is to explain what this means going forward in the simplest terms possible.
It's a pipe dream, I know.

Posted by colleeniem | July 13, 2008 11:37 AM

If the Hummer piece had appeared in the Nation or on Alternet, we would have laughed. When it appears in the WaPo we think it may be a serious piece, of a piece with their increasingly insane and divorced-from-reality rightwing politics.

Posted by serial catowner | July 13, 2008 11:59 AM

The purpose of the article was to piss off liberals, tree huggers, progressives etc.We may have lost the hummer battle. The market has spoken! But we are not going quietly. I thumb my nose at you! Go away before I taunt you a second time!

Posted by cheflovesbeer | July 13, 2008 12:20 PM

Whenever I see someone in a Hummer coming up behind me on the highway, I make a special effort to get in front of them and slow down to 55 mph. I can't be the only one.

Maybe we should add this hidden cost to the overall cost of Hummer ownership.

Oh, and re: the "small penis" jokes: The point of an insult is not that it's true, but that it actually be insulting. That's why calling an urban liberal metrosexual a "fag" is so laughably inept. (Could that even be considered an insult?)

Do I believe a small penis is some sort of deficit? No. Do 99% of Hummer drivers think this is some sort of mortal assault on their manhood? Yes.

As far as "perpetuating" the sterotype: sorry, but that's just collateral damage. :)

Posted by ibc | July 13, 2008 12:30 PM

I see an awful lot of women driving SUV's - in the supermarket parking lot, picking up kids from school, etc. SUV mania is not just a macho thing - it is a fad based on conformism (as all fads are) and supposed prestige and conspicuous consumption - who has the biggest SUV or pickup, with the biggest tires.

Posted by skeptonomist | July 13, 2008 12:44 PM

A SUV is a minor carbon-burning status symbol compared to a 3-6 MPG ozone-depleting private jet. That exists purely to differentiate the real business elite from well-paid flunkies, and the true elite leisure class flitting about from Cabos to Aspen to The Vineyard to Global Warming Planet Saving Conventions from the poor proles crammed 200 to a jet for their silly little squalid 7-day holiday to Disneyworld, Mallorjca, Greece, Las Vegas.

Such people will never know the glory of the truly influential arriving on one day in Davos in over 800 government executive, corporate, NGO, private jets. Plus another 300 planes of assistants, servants, additional security, private doctors, and dog-keepers arriving hours later as "support team" after the principles have arrived and been shuttled to 5-Star hotels in "non-polluting" electric vehicles with briefing sheets, exclusive invites to limited audience meetings, and position papers ready for them for Convention - all made on recycled "CO2-neutral" paper.

Posted by chris ford | July 13, 2008 1:06 PM

Chris Ford: Okay. We get it. Al Gore flies in a jet. You don't like it. You think this is far more important than millions of vehicles sold, hence the absurd comparison between "a" SUV and "a" jet. We get it.

You can keep repeating it and it will remain the ridiculous point that it is. No matter how many times. Or you could just keep screaming 'Buh Al Gore' a hundred million times and see if that makes you feel better. Al Gore Flies In A Jet Aeroplane! Ha! He lunches wif 'em damn Davos 'litists, unlike Brush-Clearin' Bush the Comner!

I suppose, therefore, that the reason Bush let businesses deduct the entire value of these giant SUV's was their concerns for the environment lest these businesses buy lots and lots and lots of private jets to drive around town with.

Idiot.

Posted by El Cid | July 13, 2008 1:21 PM

Shorter El Cid - "Gas-guzzling playtoys of the Elites should be exempt from moral approbation because few can afford such toys or proflagate travel or energy needs of several mansions. Whereas the evil, stupid hundreds millions with their fat asses and stupid big cars and dumb boats have a greater impact and must be morally condemned and told to use one sheet of toilet paper daily for their best interests and good of the Planet. Al Gore and the Davos Elites NEED to guzzle to help educate and save the masses from themselves.."

Posted by chris ford | July 13, 2008 2:43 PM

Oh, Chris Ford, while it's cute that you try the "shorter" thing, you have no idea what I'd be happy to do to entertain myself by cracking down on elite extravagance, whether or not I thought it made a measurable difference -- but be careful what you wish for in your faux-prole missives.

You don't care about measurable effects, though, you're mainly interested in symbolism that makes what you imagine to be the masses feel good about themselves.

What bothers you about the Al Gore jet is not what fuel it does or does not use, but because you think somehow Al Gore's life makes the good ol' Southern proles around you cry, because of course the worst crime in the known universe is for any reg'lar person to ever, ever, ever think that any of their choices are other than sheer moral perfection.

Al Gore represents to you not "the elites", but the image of that elite which somehow, somewhere, is looking down his nose and sneering at the people whose spirits -- though not in any objective matter their actual lives -- you have appointed yourself to protect.

As a fellow Southerner, I recognize the sad tradition of the pathetic, hypersensitive nimrods ever on the lookout for the slightest sign that someone, usually a Yankee, but even worse, a fellow Southerner who has turned, might be looking down at you, and for you, that sort of suffering is a million times more horrible than the pains of war you have at least partially seen.

The saddest part is that you think your fellows so weak, so sensitive, so deserving of pity that you completely miss your countrymen's ability to take hard news and to adapt. You would sooner shelter them from any suggestion of having been wrong than admire them for their abilities to learn and move on.

For all your blusters about how tough we must be for the horrors of war, you sure have come to see the ordinary working people around you as sterile, fragile porcelain dolls whose mute virtue calls for a protector.

Yet what you fear is that they are indeed strong, stronger than you, and that they don't really need the protector you demand that everyone recognize you as. Worse than harmful, you're useless, and you just try to keep fighting against that realization. Good luck with that.

Posted by El Cid | July 13, 2008 3:12 PM

@Chris Ford:

I have trouble taking seriously the opinions of anyone who refers to the Japanese as "Japs" and it isn't 1945.

I read other threads.

Malkin might respect you though.

Posted by calipygian | July 13, 2008 4:08 PM

Moreso than any personal possession, I think that the Hummer says about the owner: "Hello, I'm a huge douchebag". Even DeBord's stereotypical Hummer driver is a swaggering, selfish asshole (although I don't think DeBord sees it that way).

On a side note, Arnie isn't just a Hummer owner, he can be credited for bringing it into the mass-market. Years ago, Arnie approached GM to make a 'civilian' version of the Hummer, which at that point was solely a military vehical. Apparently Arnold wanted a ride that reflected/projected his 'larger than life personality'. So, basically, right from the 'commercial' Hummer's inception, it was meant for self-important, self-absorbed douchebags.

Posted by raff | July 13, 2008 4:31 PM

Yeah, it's weak satire, further weakened by it being the sort of thing that Fred Hiatt would green-light.

For more satire, I'd like to know how much was invested in the Chandra Levy series, while Dana Priest walks away from the WaPo with her buyout.

The funniest thing about Hummers is that the H2 and H3 are just steroidal Chevys. (Or Isuzus.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 13, 2008 5:22 PM

Even DeBord's stereotypical Hummer driver is a swaggering, selfish asshole (although I don't think DeBord sees it that way).

Yes, DeBord does see it that way. He (or at least the voice of the author he is trying to channel) sees being a swaggering, selfish asshole as a virtuous personality trait.

Posted by Tyro | July 13, 2008 5:25 PM

I'm probably too drunk to pull this off (if I may), but the hummer is not about compensating for small male endowment.

The way I see it is that Arnie (who was really the avant-garde in this particular fashion and can serve as the paradigm) buys a hummer, not because his dick is small, but rather because he's insecure about his masculinity, because his profession requires that he PLAY at being masculine. After all, he's an actor.

Interestingly, Arnie's spectacular financial success is not enough to show he's a man. Nor would knocking up Maria, even though, after all, you can't get much more male than impregnating someone.

But he wants something that symbolizes not biologic function, but rather sociological status. It seems obvious that for Arnold the military is the last bastion of true masculinity. What better way to tap, safely, into that masculinity than by buying the soldier's automobile?

The irony is that soldiers wouldn't need to be riding around in Iraq in humvees if it weren't for Americans' obsession with gashogs like the humvee.

Posted by drunken_orangetree | July 13, 2008 8:30 PM

"That's why calling an urban liberal metrosexual a "fag" is so laughably inept. (Could that even be considered an insult?)"

Ironically, while crossing the street in Boston not too long ago while some asshole Hummer driver was honking at everybody, a girl who was probably in high school said to her friend "look, a Hummer owner. What a fag." While I disagree with using "fag" in such a way, it does point to how owning a Hummer is not only about compensating for being the only male with penis envy, but overcompensating for one's uncertainty about their sexuality. At least that's the social message that's put out to everyone who is not a right wing yapping head.

Posted by Reality Man | July 14, 2008 9:44 AM