The surest sign of the season: the return of the War on Christmas on Fox News Channel

Those first few strands of garland on the shopping center signpost the week before Halloween could be innocent enough, and the early signs that the local nursery is saving space for a lot of trees can be misleading.  But there’s only one explanation for the sudden glut of reports of controversy over “holiday” trees at the statehouse and proposed changes to the lyrics of Christmas carols: Fox News Channel has cranked up its reports on the War on Christmas.  And I do mean crank.

Jason Linkins notes that FNC is reporting a major victory on behalf of Christmas in this on-going clash, a phantom battle that is high high high on the list of the stupidest things ever to be the cause of wasted breath.  It’s another asinine cry for attention from a pampered majority of Americans who inexplicably feel threatened by any attempt by government or business to recognize that there are Americans with other beliefs that deserve respect, too.

For most mainstream Christians, the Yuletide season is one in which enormous accommodations are made to those who practice the Christian faith. You get time off from work, and schools get out so your kids can visit family, and on every block, there is an illuminated reminder that Christmas has arrived. You’ve probably noticed that this began about mid-October.

No holiday is as well accommodated in America as Christmas. It is perhaps one of the best celebrated religious holidays in the history of mankind.

Yet these people are peeved because some choose to wish others “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” even if only for crassly commercial reasons.

…the continuing use of the term “war on Christmas” to describe the reaction of people who do not receive full validation of their religious beliefs from cashiers 100 percent of the time is still a grievous insult to people around the world who are legitimately persecuted for expressing their religious faith, and who look to the way religious freedom is accommodated in America with envy.

And well they should, for they recognize that the Europeans who settled America were people who fled religious persecution in search of religious freedom.   Of course, the fine folks at FNC like to pull that plum from the pudding and stick it in the eye of the Christmas-haters, claiming that “religious freedom is on the rocks” in the land of the Pilgrims.  I leave it to Jon Stewart to set that straw man on fire (click the pics for a two-part pertinent and amusing holiday-themed retort):

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Dear Anita Perry,

I am surprised, I must say.  I’d have thought that after more than 30 years as the wife of a professional politician you wouldn’t be so sensitive to a little push-back.  But they are less deferential out in the rest of the country than we are back here at home in Texas, huh?  Getting all teary and everything because you think Governor Haircut has been “brutalized” due to his Christian faith?  Is that really going to be your best approach?

Anita PerryThe thing is, most of the rest of the country takes pluralism and religious tolerance seriously. They’re not all evangelical Christians like so very many here at home, and they don’t wear their faith on their sleeves, either.  Just because you are comfortable talking about your faith doesn’t mean everyone else is interested in hearing about it, especially people who make their voting decisions without little or no consideration of a candidate’s religion, and there are a lot of those people in America.

Frankly, most of America probably wouldn’t even know what church you folks belong to if you hadn’t made a big deal about it.  You’re the ones who brought your religion into this, so you can’t be a crybaby when others make it an issue.

After all, you’re part of the plurality here—white, Christian America—so you can’t whine when someone, or anyone, has the temerity to be anything but subservient or obsequious.  If on the one hand you proudly tell us that God’s call to your husband to run for president of the United States was like encountering a burning bush, then you cannot on the other hand complain when people question his relationships with religious figures like Robert Jeffress.

You said that these brutal attacks are coming from the news media as well as some of your fellow Republicans.  I’d like to suggest two things.  The first is to remind you (again) that reporters covering the campaign are supposed to investigate the claims made by candidates; they are not there merely to transcribe and distribute the candidates’ profound words.  They are supposed to poke and prod and ask questions and look for inconsistencies and errors, and publish their findings.  That’s reporting; that’s their job.  And the second thing is, if you’re unhappy about being attacked by Republicans you thought were your friends, well, welcome to a contested Republican primary.

One other thing, if I might.  I see you being quoted as saying this opposition comes “because of his faith.  He is the only true conservative.”  Apologies if I’m misunderstanding here, but are you saying that conservatism is a religious faith?  Or, that people who are not evangelical Christians are incapable of being “true conservatives”?  If so, that’s going to come as a big surprise to the members of the less-demonstrative Christian denominations, the Roman Catholics, the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists,  the Shintos, the Mormons, the Quakers, the Unitarian-Universalists,  the Scientologists, the Rastafarians and, of course, the atheists, agnostics and secular humanists who are all part of the Weekly Standard/Fox News Channel/Rush Limbaugh axis of moral superiority.

This morning on ABC News the governor stood by what you said yesterday in Tigerville, South Carolina (Tigerville?  Really?), and I think that’s exactly what he should have done; a man should stand up for his wife.  But if he really agrees with your sentiment, and his skin isn’t as thick as he’s let on, you two are in for quite an unpleasant ride.

Now, if you could please explain to me how it is that you blame President Obama for your son losing his job, as you claimed this morning, even though your son voluntarily resigned.  This should be good.

The man says media bias isn’t a problem, it’s a solution; thoughts?

Are you like me, do you just love the press criticism?  (Of course you are; of course you do.)  Well, I correspond today with news of the new location for Jack Shafer, who was laid off last month by Slate, where as editor at large he wrote the Press Box column (and other things).  In fact, Shafer’s first column at Reuters is dated one week ago so I’m a couple of days late to the party, but there’s not as much to catch up on if you start right away.

If you’re new to Shafer’s brand of criticism, jump in with a look at the latest column: he’s arguing against self-described centrist journalism.

If not for media bias, I’m certain that my news diet would taste so strongly of sawdust and talc that I would abandon news consumption completely. As long as I’m eating news, give me the saffron smoothness of New York Times liberalism and the hallelujah hot sauce excitement of Fox News Channel conservatism. Anything but a menu of balance, moderation, and fairness!

Read the column—he’s not against “balance, moderation and fairness,” he’s against bland; he’s against lazy news consumers who are insufficiently critical of what they read, see and hear, and recommends we all expand our menu of news providers.

The recommendation comes from my prejudice that liberals are better at sniffing out corporate corruption and national security shenanigans and conservatives better at blowing the whistle on waste and overreach by governments. Centrist news outlets, or at least self-defined centrist journalists, don’t strike me as possessed or deranged enough to battle their way to the end of a good investigation.

I also call upon readers to learn how to hit both lefties and righties—and whatever ambidextrous centrist journalists take the mound. Media bias isn’t a journalistic problem. It’s a solution.

Shafer’s new spot at Reuters is now on my blogroll over there, for your future reference.

And now, a word from one of our very fine sponsors

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Fox News hoisted with own petard (again)

For any of you who had to vote “hypocrite” in the last round, take some solace in knowing that your member of Congress, hypocrite though he/she may be, can’t hope to compete with the people of Fox News.  The best part is that, of course, the Fox folk did it to themselves…again.  In the category “Who called who a Nazi?” last night The Daily Show nailed them not only for gratuitous and improper use of the term, and not only also for the hypocrisy of being the pot while calling the kettle black, but mostly for flat out lying when confronted about what they say on their air.  Click the grey afro below; the Fox fun starts at 1:33 in.

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I try not to think of it as piling on; but when I do think of it as piling on, I think, who deserves it more?