The Tennessee Center for Policy Research recently generated headlines when it announced that former Vice President Al Gore's Nashville, Tenn., estate "devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours" of electricity in 2006, "more than 20 times the national average."

This free-market think tank's phones lit up when it analyzed Nashville Electric Service's public records and identified an inconvenient gap between Gore's conservationism and his energy consumption. The research center's one-page press release was greeted with enough megawatts of hatred to power the South.

"I was accused several times of being a 'stupid, redneck bitch,' " recalls Nicole Williams, who fielded numerous calls. "I repeatedly was called a 'whore' and asked 'Whose whore are you?' for three days straight, almost as if those were talking points ... I was shocked by these sexist insults -- basically attacking my gender."

The calls continued beyond Williams' Nashville office.

"I had to change my home number and get an unlisted number," Williams says.

"I got about 10 death threats by phone. I got the 'I'm gonna get you'-type threats more than 100 times ... I worried I would get shot walking to my car."

Williams discovered her obsolete address posted online. "If they could find my old home address, it would not be so hard to find a current one."

Gore's defenders also spewed venomous e-mails. They sent the research center nearly 3,000 Gore-related messages that exhibited the very bigotry the Left routinely denounces.

Warning: These offensive, often-vulgar and occasionally unschooled comments reveal the vitriol behind much of today's "progressive" rhetoric.

Many e-mails displayed Dixiephobia -- an intense disdain for the South and Southerners.

"Why don't you all go back to shooting one another across the hollows instead of trying to make people think anyone in Tennessee has an ounce of intelligence?" Roger Miller insisted. "Get your snaggle tooth grins capped and learn to read and write."

"W.T.F. difference would it make if he was (sic) using 1,000 times more energy than the average household if it came from clean energy?" Thomas Grinnell wondered. "Don't think about that too much. It will give your southern mullet a headache."

"You really should concentrate on what Southerners do best," D. Hunter advised. "Sodomizing and impregnating little children!"

Christopher LaBarge declared: "I hope you all die slowly and have your hearts and brains trampled to pieces you small-minded, ignorant, backwoods ideologues."

"We should have flattened the South when we had the chance!" wrote Mount Laurel, New Jersey's Robert Dodelin. "If ever you confederates (sic) want to leave the Union please do. We Nothen (sic) states would love to stop having to subsidize you with our tax dollars."

This anti-Southernism mystifies TCPR President Drew Johnson.

"Some people must believe the Mason-Dixon Line runs between our office and Gore's mansion," Johnson says. "No one would call Gore a redneck, but when we uncovered his hypocritical energy use, it somehow made me a sister-dating hillbilly. That's quite amusing, since Gore and I live in Nashville, less than five miles apart."

Some e-mails, like Benjamin Greuel's, reflected anti-religious bias: "Go (blank) yourselves you neo con, non-secular, bible thumpin, anti-science dumb (blanks)."

Similarly, Anthony Black wrote: "You bunch of stupid hick red-necks. I am sure you are quite religious, yet you have no problem destroying His creation with pollution; and, rather than addressing that, you cast dispersions (sic) on Al Gore's home energy use.

"How about you have a do (sic) humanity a favor and have a stroke," Russ Smith recommended. "You silly metrosexual twit, need some more hi-lites in your hair?"

Two e-mails feature chillingly violent imagery.

"You people are such slime," TJ Williams noted. "You are a total waste of skin and air. Help the environment and jump off a cliff."

Bob Beaver urged: "Find a hole and stick a knife in it."

Such anti-intellectual intimidation reflects the high-octane hate that fuels so much Leftist discourse. Rather than simply argue that Johnson, Williams, and their colleagues are ecologically misguided or misinformed, these bullies call them barefoot, same-sex-loving, Winchester-wielding whores and evangel-yokels. Remember this whenever liberals crow about diversity, tolerance, and open-mindedness.

Daily Southtown