How often do the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times push a story the same day with the same point of view? It’s rare.

But it happened this week — on January 8 — with a banner WSJ headline saying “SUVs May Be Losing Their Cool,” while the NYT asserted “TV Ads Say SUV Owners Support Terrorism.” The market for oversized SUVs is shifting, improving prospects for safer roads and cleaner air in American metro regions. Not from any great environmental victory, but from market forces. And not a year too soon, as more and more metropolitan regions fall out of compliance with clean-air standards.

Both January 8 stories pointed to cutting-edge consumers growing sour on monster SUVs. Daimler-Chrysler admits its market research reveals consumers unhappy with the gas-guzzling nature of the larger SUVs; D-C is actually running ads promoting minivans as an alternative even as its Dodge division seems to have given Viagra to its latest Durango model.

While Detroit’s in full fret over possible meltdown of its profit center, civic eyebrows arch over ads just released by religious organizations, asking “What would Jesus Drive?” And whole heads turn as conservative columnist Arianna Huffington announces the “Detroit Project,” with ads to run next Sunday through Thursday in New York, Washington, Detroit, and Los Angeles. These audacious ads will rollout on this coming Sunday news programs watched by the chattering classes. They say that owners of large SUVs are, in effect, supporting terrorism; they guzzle gas bought from nations that fund our enemies.

Just last fall Keith Bradsher, who’s covered the auto industry for the past six years, published High and Mighty, a socioeconomic appraisal of the SUV craze. Bradsher sees a correlation between the size of the SUV and the likelihood that its driver is a self-absorbed jerk. Sure to scowl would be former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who just relinquished his state-provided Navigator, and immediately hopped into his own Hummer.

So put the champagne on hold. Denial isn’t dead. General Motors vice chairman and product development chief Robert Lutz dismisses the commotion as “fringe elements” and “much ado about nothing.” But as both the WSJ and the NYT attest, most market analysts point to the numbers, showing that buyers are moving rapidly to “crossover” vehicles — four-wheel drive vehicles yielding better fuel efficiency, built on the underpinnings of a car rather than a truck. Like the station wagons our parents drove, but with better gas mileage.

Righteous protest, as usual, profits from the helping hand of market forces.