The Plot Against Christmas
I've given myself an early Christmas present this season, and have not been subjecting myself to the occasional forced self-flagellation of watching Bill O'Really or Hannity and Tool. But I keep up with what's going on via Media Matters, and it seems that all these guys got the same memo--do whatever you can to paint the picture that Christmas is under attack by the godless Democratic heathens. Today, Salon has a great wrap-up of some of these whoppers from O'Really and company

The thorny issue of striking the proper balance between America's predominant Christian population and the country's historic separation of church and state returns every holiday season like unwanted fruitcake. But as ABC News recently noted, "This year, people in red, or Republican America -- particularly Christian conservatives -- are in an unprecedented uproar."

[...]

Throughout December, O'Reilly has positioned himself as the lone ranger, willing to step up and defend the baby Jesus. "Nobody sticks up for Christmas except me. Did Peter Jennings stick up for Christmas last night? I don't believe he did. How about Brian Williams, did he? Did Rather stick up for Christmas? No."

Since O'Reilly began chronicling how Christmas was "under siege," the host has been using a slew of vague catchphrases -- "those people," "these creeps," "secular progressives," "the secular bunch," "extremists" -- to describe the lurking, godless forces who want to take Christ out of Christmas.

In a previous post, I noted O'Really's recent message to a caller to his radio show that if you're a Jew and "if you are really offended (by overt Christmas pageantry), you gotta go to Israel then." But Salon notes:

O'Reilly is not alone in singling out Jews this Christmas season. In a column for the conservative Web site FrontPage, former Boston Herald writer Don Feder mocked the notion that "Myron may fear the onset of another Crusade if he hears the strains of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' drifting through the hallways." He added, "The brave men who fought and died for America in every war from the Revolution to Iraq, overwhelmingly were Christians. Count the number of crosses in Arlington National Cemetery (on federal property, no less). Add the Stars of David."

Things got even uglier during a segment on MSNBC Dec. 8, when William Donahue of the arch-conservative Catholic League insisted, "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes."

And here's an anatomy of a cooked-up anti-Christmas tale:

(T)ake the example of a school principal in Kirkland, Wash., who allegedly canceled a performance of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" out of fear that it violated the district's holiday policy of keeping church and state separate. The story has become a touchstone in the anti-Christmas crusade movement. O'Reilly cited the play's being "banned" as a prime example of "anti-Christmas madness," while conservative Washington Times columnist Deborah Simmons wrote matter-of-factly that the principal "lowered the curtain on a production of the classic 'A Christmas Carol' because feeble Tiny Tim says, 'God bless us everyone.'" That assertion is pure fiction.

Reading the very first news account of the manufactured controversy, from a Dec. 5 article in the King County Journal, it's plain the school's principal, Mark Robertson, "canceled the Dec. 17 matinee by the Attic Theatre cast because students would have been charged to see the performance." Robertson himself told the paper: "We don't allow any private organizations to come and sell products in the schools, or we'd have everybody down here." The principal mentioned in passing that even if the play were free it would have prompted "a secondary discussion about public school and religion," such as whether the play was tied to any particular curriculum and whether attendance was mandatory.

Yet on Dec. 8, Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat, reaching a much wider audience than the King County Journal, wrote that Kirkland "students were to see a staging of Dickens' story on Dec. 17, but the principal has canceled it, in part because it raised the issue of religion in the public schools."

Two days later, Westneat conceded he "went too far" in his original column, admitting the play was canceled because it was improperly booked. "The principal's comments about the play raising issues of religion in school were misunderstood," he wrote. By then, however, the tale of the canceled Christmas play had ricocheted around the talk radio echo chamber and become permanently lodged inside Fox News.

In an interesting footnote, Westneat wrote, "Few things I've written have generated as loud and disparate a response as Wednesday's column. I'm surprised at how many rallied to the secular cause. Nearly half of more than 200 readers who weighed in said schools should avoid the [Christmas] issue." Which hardly supports O'Reilly's claim that fed-up Americans are rising up against anti-Christmas forces.

Not to be outdone by the gang at Fox, CNN's Lou Dobbs has also started on the Christmas bandwagon (via Media Matters):

LOU DOBBS: You know, when you think about it, "Happy Holidays" -- what other holidays are we celebrating right now? We're celebrating Christmas, right?

CHRISTINE ROMANS: And they say Hanukkah, Kwanzaa --

DOBBS: Kwanzaa?

ROMANS: -- also the end of Ramadan and a host of other holidays between Thanksgiving and New Year's.

DOBBS: But as we celebrate each one of those -- and each of us in this very diverse society does celebrate -- my Jewish friends say to me "Happy Hanukkah," I say to them "Merry Christmas," none of us is offended. I don't understand the reluctance to use Christmas.

ROMANS: They say "Happy Holidays" covers it all.

DOBBS: They do? Well, they're wrong. And merry Christmas. Thanks, Christine.

Dobbs made his comments directly following a report by Romans, in which she quoted a statement by Macy's which conveyed the company's desire to be inclusive of "all religious and ethnic celebrations."