Tilting at Windmills.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Critiquing SUV's

Vice City * Unread Cables * $50 Cocktails * H2 as 007 If W Were Bill * What Democrats Should Do Now

I HAD HOPED KEITH BRADSHER'S devastating critique of the SUV in High and Mighty (see Stephanie Mencimer's review, p. 44) would get those top-heavy gas-guzzlers off the road. But what we have instead is even more of a monster. It's called the H2, a civilian version of the military's Hummer.

Menacingly heavier and wider than other vehicles, it looks like its driver has a license to kill. What about its gas mileage? It doesn't have to be reported because H2s are so heavy, writes Danny Hakim of The New York Times, "that they do not fall under normal federal fuel-economy regulations that govern cars, SUVs, and pickups" Buyers don't seem to be bothered by the fuel economy issue, even though the vehicle costs $50,000. "If you can afford to buy an H2, if you get 10 miles to the gallon, you're not going to care," one owner told Hakim.

If all of this sounds like bad news, there's more coming. The H2 is a big success, selling out as fast as dealers can stock it without any of the special discounts being offered on almost every other vehicle.

Why do people buy it? One hint: Buyers speak of other sport utilities as "the vehicles of soccer moms"

NEW YORKERS ARE LIVING HIGH these days. You can pay $50 for a cocktail at the World Bar across the street from the United Nations building. Luxury is in. "The season's new mood," reports Ruth La Ferla in The New York Times, "is an effusive glamour. At a string of parties ... the look of luxury was matched by an almost palpable feeling of release--like champagne popping its own cork ... The dress code was just as extravagant at the Fashion Group event, where style-setters like Anna Wintour shed their customary cloth wraps in favor of silver fox"

The city's new mayor fits the new mood. Consider his lobbying technique: "Mayor Bloomberg has whisked the state legislature's two most powerful leaders to his posh Bermuda hideaway for serious golf and even more serious talk about his budget," reports Fredric Dicker in The New York Post. "Sources say the three flew out of LaGuardia Airport on Sunday morning aboard Bloomberg's personal jet and then headed for the mayor's mansion--which Bermudans say is worth at least $20 million--a stone's throw from the exclusive Mid-Ocean Golf Club."

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS granting the IRS a 4.8 percent increase in its enforcement budget this year. Is that enough to make more than a dent in the number of tax cheats? Not according to someone who should know, David Hariton, a tax lawyer with the leading Wall Street firm Sullivan & Cromwell. Tax avoidance has become so sophisticated, he tells David Cay Johnston of The New York Times, that "the government needs to devote 10 times as many resources as it does now" Johnston reports that the IRS, with its present strength, is unable to pursue 56 percent of the unreported tax on incomes of $100,000 and above, 79 percent of offshore tax evaders, and 75 percent of the individuals and corporations that simply don't bother to file tax returns.

Is THE TRANSPORTATION SECURITY Agency using the most cost-effective approach to recruit airport screeners? There is some reason for doubt. Recently, 20 TSA recruiters, faced with the task of finding 50 screeners for airports in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, found it necessary to spend seven weeks at the Wyndham Park Resort and Golden Door Spa near Telluride--a resort featuring an 18-hole golf course, indoor and outdoor pools, fluffy robes, and oversized bathrooms, according to The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Power. At $147 per person per night, that adds up to at least $144,060. They also paid $29,000 for "extra security" to the Mountain Village Police Department. This means that the total cost of the 50 recruits was at least $173,060. Now you can understand why the TSA's pleas for more money are greeted with some skepticism on Capitol Hill.

Incidentally, the Wyndham Park is, according to the Journal, "more than an hour's drive on winding two-lane roads from most of the region's airports" In Durango, the town with the region's largest airport, Best Western has rooms for $112 a night with coffee and donuts.

GEORGE W. Bush SOLD HIS Harken Energy stock a week after he and the company's other directors had been warned by the firm's outside lawyers not to sell if they had unfavorable information about the company's prospects that outweighed the favorable facts. Bush sold his stock for $4 a share; it soon dropped to $1.25, and now sells for 20 cents.

Bush's attorney did not inform the SEC of the lawyers' warning until the day after the SEC staff had...