November 21, 2008

The War on the War on Christmas Kicks Off With Biggest Logical Leap of the Year

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henninger-santa-hat.jpg It’s that time of year again. From now until December 26, expect over-the-top proclamations from your favorite conservative hacks about how our inability to say the words “Merry Christmas” is a sign of this country’s imminent downfall. And it’s not just our culture that suffers because of our overzealous political correctness, says Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger. In the most absurd (and least substantiated) logical leap of the year, he claims our economy is being destroyed as well.

“And so it will come to pass once again that many people will spend four weeks biting on tongues lest they say “Merry Christmas” and perchance, give offense. Christmas, the holiday that dare not speak its name.

“This year we celebrate the desacralized “holidays” amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin — fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man’s theory: A nation whose people can’t say “Merry Christmas” is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.“

Yup. It has nothing to do with the government’s financial overseers being asleep at the switch, or a decades-long conservative push for deregulation, or even the greed of lenders who gave out bad loans in order to make millions and Wall Street types who created financial instruments they could not understand in order to make billions. Nope. The stock market is tumbling, unemployment is growing, and people across America are feeling the pinch at their kitchen tables because your local Target has a “Happy Holidays” banner out front.

You aren’t getting away with it any longer, Target. Daniel Henninger has exposed your scam. Angry mobs are coming to your locations to scrawl “Merry Christmas” over your “desacralized” signs, and then everyone will feel better and start buying TiVos and the economy will be great again.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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