FOX's War On 'Holidays'

See, you can really turn that one around, can't you?

As Stephen Colbert said last night:
"If there was one thing Jesus cared about- it was semantics."

Nothing more needs to, or should be, said about Fox New's "War On Christmas" fake issue used to rally the masses, increase ratings, and distract from real stuff like, oh, say the war concerns after this. On "Fox News Watch" yesterday, the Christmas war was the issue. The Fox people wasted no time in triangulating the discussion to the issue's big talking point- a secular assault on Christianity. They put up a poll entitled "Religion in America" asking people what holiday they celebrate. The results were 95% for Christmas and only small numbers for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or none. Take that other holidays!

Panel members Jane Hall and Neal Gabler wasted no time plowing through the white, powdery bullshit and calling this issue out for what it is. Gabler noted that the 'war on Christmas' theme was discussed as far as back as 1921 by Henry Ford and has anti-semitic roots to it. He later stated that "I want to talk about the media angle because we have avoided it. It's the elephant in the room. It's Fox News. Come on, it's Bill O'Reilly, it's Hannity, it's Gibson. They're demogogues who realized that in Christmas time you can rouse the masses on this issue. They'll do it every Christmas. They did it last Christmas, they'll do it next Christmas."

Jane Hall stepped in and stated, "Jesus is for tolerance. To have Bill O'Reilly, has made this a huge issue. He's obviously getting a lot of feedback. John Gibson has a book about it, another Fox anchor. I think this is a largely a fundraiser for Jerry Falwell to pick up on some run-amok-PC... Boycott the companies that have holiday wishes? What is the point of that?"

Finally, Gabler gets to the real meat of this nonsense- "We're at war, there's Darfur, there's an AIDS crisis and you're worried about whether people should say 'Merry Christmas'? What world do you live in?"

Crooks and Liars has video: FOX News Watch: Fox created the " War on Christmas" story

Relevent article/editorial from the NY Times:
This Season's War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else

This video is funny, though, and actually frames a better argument than the Fox guys (I found it on the blog of that crazy liberal, Andrew Sullivan).

Finally- A Tom Tomorrow cartoon from last December:


[Flashback- Bill O'Reilly explains the true meaning of Christmas.]