Check out this hilarious ad spoof at Ifilm.com. It was running over a month before the SUV ads hit the air:

http://www.geocities.com/digistain

20% of the petroleum we get comes from the missle East. So 20% of the petroleum going into SUV’s comes from the Middle East, not 2% of 20%. That number is the fraction of the total amount of money spent on gas by the US that is spent by SUV owners and which goes to the Middle East.

Agree with what you said after that, and the real issue is not the absolute amount of gas that SUV owners buy, but the amount they could save if they switched to a car with better gas mileage. That difference would be the amount you could say that SUV owners contribute to potential terrorist funding, if you were inclined to make that silly argument.

And, as you point out, the net contribution from SUV owners is small compared to the overall US expenditure on oil–maybe 1% of it (if you assume that you could get a car with double the MPG of an SUV if you traded it in, which is far from certain.)

And, I really hope I never see someone who makes both the argument that “oil money funds terrorists” and “poverty causes terrorism,” since they contradict each other.