The War on Terror...izing Christmas (from 2005)

In what can only be described as the right wing’s newest and most insidious attempt at deflecting public attention from the complete and utter fiasco that is the war in Iraq, a movement in this country to “take back Christmas” has been fabricated in the hopes of distracting people with an irrelevant issue while allowing the war to slip momentarily out of the public eye. Rather than protest the ubiquitous materialism and commercialism that the holiday currently embodies, these hypersensitive crusaders feel that the use of the phrase “Happy Holidays” over “Merry Christmas” marginalizes their religion. Putting aside the semantics of the word “Holidays” (perhaps it is a reference to both Christmas and New Year’s Eve?), the sheer audacity of a group with a 75% majority in the United States to feel as though they are being oppressed or discriminated against is mind-boggling.

As with almost any other crazy and irrational scheme from the right, the movement to plaster the word “Christmas” on every store window in the country is helmed by none other than Bill O’Reilly (a.k.a. the pundit who stole Christmas). O’Reilly blames the media for trying to “secularize Christmas,” as if such a thing even made sense, and says that the use of the phrase “Happy Holidays” in retail stores is “frightening.” Never mind the fact that Macy’s and Lowe’s Hardware both have dutifully restored the word “Christmas” to their advertisements, a victory that O’Reilly acknowledges but downplays. O’Reilly’s fight against a non-existent opponent to his unthreatened holiday also seems to be inherently self-defeating, as it simply results in the continued exploitation of his holiday in the name of selling goods and services. Remember, kids: there is nothing more Christian than supporting the manipulation of one of your most important holy days in the name of peddling iPods and cell phones.

This so-called “War on Christmas” is little more than a shameful diversion tactic on the part of the conservative media. Capitalizing on the emergence of the increasingly outspoken religious right, news commentators like Bill O’Reilly are seeking to incite a controversy over a hot-button issue (one that holds no bearing on any substantive national events) to draw attention away from the many failings of the Bush Administration.

George W. Bush has had an abysmal year, and his approval ratings are as low as Nixon’s right before he resigned from office. The complete lack of preparedness for Hurricane Katrina exposed the Administration’s incompetence and raised questions about how we would handle another terrorist attack. Several of the Republican Party’s leading figures have been indicted on charges ranging from obstruction of justice to conspiracy. Most notably, the war in Iraq reached the 2,000-casualty mark for U.S. soldiers, with an estimated 30,000 Iraqi casualties, including civilians. In an age of high-tech tactical warfare intended to minimize the human toll of war, these numbers reflect the hurried planning and poor execution of what will forever be remembered as a failed war. Understandably, conservatives have been desperately trying to control the damage, and as usual they’ve found yet another way to exploit wedge issues as a means of underplaying serious issues that threaten the country. They’ve employed these tactics successfully against everyone from John McCain to John Kerry, and it is more than likely that they will prevail again. The so-called Grand Old Party of principles and morals has become a circus of exploitative white men motivated solely by self-interest.

Despite GOP wishes to the contrary, the war on terror cannot be replaced by the war on Christmas. It is the responsibility of the American people to reject the preposterous claims made by members of the conservative media, and to ignore counterarguments made by liberals who take the bait. It is increasingly clear that our media is, for whatever reason, unable to ask tough questions of the Bush administration. The age of Walter Cronkite and journalistic integrity has been replaced by the age of sensationalism and pandering, and nothing makes this clearer than the perpetuation of this myth of a war on Christmas.