TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2003 -- Arianna Huffington is one of the more perplexing voices in our public discourse. The ex-wife of a former Republican California Senate candidate and a former admirer of Newt Gingrich, Huffington has emerged as one of the quirkiest public figures around. Right now, Huffington is in the spotlight for her funding of an advertising campaign aimed at discouraging people from driving SUVs. The ads make a simple point: gas-guzzlers aid the nations which fund the terrorists, i.e. Saudi Arabia.

Huffington was in Boston yesterday for a string of media appearances. She was interviewed by Emily Rooney on WGBH’s Greater Boston and by Chet Curtis on NECN’s NewsNight. She also spoke at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

I disagree with much that Huffington says. Huffington was wrong in 1999 when she opposed US intervention in Yugoslavia, and I disagree with her opposition to the need for military confrontation with Iraq. But when it comes to the menace posed by SUVs, I am whole-heartedly with her. In fact, I think she backpeddled too much in her interview with Chet Curtis when she described the ads as " parody " in the vein of Jonathan Swift.

Let’s be honest. American dependency on oil is the main reason why US foreign policy makers can’t confront the corrupt regime of Saudi Arabia, from which 15 of the 19 September 11th terrorists came. Huffington, does, however, venture into conspiracy territory when she blames the government’s unwillingness to make buying SUVs difficult on the personal relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists. There’s no question -- as Huffington points out -- that the Bush Administration is corporate friendly, with former CEOs like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld running the show. She could add the fact that White House chief of staff Andrew Card was a former lobbyist for General Motors. But the reason nobody’s eliminated the incentives for buying SUVs is that Americans want to drive the biggest cars they can. Changing that impulse via legislation is painful and one thing our lawmakers despise is causing pain.

Huffington also weighs in with an interesting column today on what President George Bush should say in his State of the Union address. The piece focuses on the imperative to wean Americans away from oil. The piece also has a Massachusetts angle. Writing as if she were President Bush, Huffington has him single out our own governor, Mitt Romney, for praise for wanting to eliminate the state fleet of SUVs. " We should all follow the example being set in Massachusetts by my good friend and fellow Republican, Gov. Mitt Romney, who wants to trade in his state’s fleet of SUVs for cars that cost less, pollute less and get better mileage, " Huffington, channeling Bush, writes.

When Huffington puts it that way, Romney looks pretty good compared to his Republican brethren. But she appears to be giving Romney too much credit. The impetus behind the SUV decision was Doug Foy, the chief of Commonwealth Development. Romney has not put the SUV decision at the top of his agenda. If Romney were to make a major statement on the vehicles this would represent a major move by and up-and-coming star. And if he were to do that, Huffington’s praise would be warranted.

Huffington’s all over the board with her politics. But the country needs that too, not just lock-step ideologues who repeat their faction’s talking point of the day.