George W. Bush's holiday cards

[pegkerr]

What's missing from the White House Christmas card? Christmas.

This month, as in every December since he took office, President Bush sent out cards with a generic end-of-the-year message, wishing 1.4 million of his close friends and supporters a happy "holiday season."

Many people are thrilled to get a White House Christmas card, no matter what the greeting inside. But some conservative Christians are reacting as if Bush stuck coal in their stockings.

(read more here.)

They really do act like they own him, don't they? The conservatives feel they put him into office, and by gum, he'd better deliver the goods on their pet issues. This an interest group which seems to me to have a sense of entitlement which is growing seriously out of proportion to their proper place in American life (because they think it is their right to take over American life), and I am finding it increasingly alarming.

Comments

[skg.livejournal.com]

Religious conservatives are miffed because they have been pressuring stores to advertise Christmas sales rather than "holiday specials" and urging schools to let students out for Christmas vacation rather than for "winter break."

Well then...

Can students who are not Christian demand that school be held for them? Why should they be denied the opportunity for further education on those days?

Can non-Christians demand that stores stay open on Christmas because they want to shop? It's not their holiday! So why should they be denied the pleasure of shopping?

I'm sure that pitching fits about these things is what Christianity and Christmas are all about.

Grrr....

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

The "religious" right, led by the usual suspects at FAUX News and the Heritage Foundation, have picked up on this non-issue because it riles up their redmeat core base, and distracts from the petty stuff: like corruption trials of White House cronies and other Republican leaders; New Orleans rebuilding scams, Iraq ditto, etc.

As a devout Christian who wishes every person on the planet could hear and believe the Good News, I am disgusted by this kind of politicized exploitation of our Lord. As I told the whackjobs at www.savemerrychristmas.org, "As a Christian, I wish to see the nativity of our Lord and Saviour severed from the pagan rituals of the 'holiday season' as thoroughly as possible. I therefore welcome anything which disassociates our Lord's birthday from the orgy of commercialization which is the winter holiday season. I think you people are on the wrong track entirely."

[magicwoman.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why they're all up in arms - before the happy holiday wish is a verse from Psalms.

Susan

[(Anonymous)]

But that's the *Old Testament*! It isn't really *Christian*! Never mind that the God they want is more "punish the lawbreakers" than "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", let alone "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter Heaven".

[magicwoman.livejournal.com]

I guess there's no pleasing some people. Right?

Susan

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

Handmaid's Tale here we come!

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Heh. My mom got a card (she's a supporter) and I saw it on her table the other day. It's actually a very attractive card - scotties in the snow. First thing I've approved that's come out of the Bush White House in a very long time.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I think it's hilarious that they quoted crazy Brother Wildmon from Tupelo, MS. My parents laugh at him all the time.

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

The line in that article which got me was:

there is, in the words of the Heritage Foundation, a "war on Christmas" involving an "ever-stronger push toward a neutered 'holiday' season so that non-Christians won't be even the slightest bit offended."

Because, of course, they want the non-Christians offended...right?

[thorintatge.livejournal.com]

The word 'holiday' is overused, no question. There are times when it's right to replace Christmas with Holiday, and there are times when it's not appropriate but done anyway. Why? Because it's an easy, automatic, and safe thing to do, just like saying "We're the leaders in quality." As such, it's a slightly offensive mistake on par with, say, a misplaced apostrophe, or earnest but poorly scanning corporate poetry. But would you throw out a card from the president because of a misplaced apostrophe?

I myself am a little irritated at overuse of 'holiday', and I'm an atheist. But I didn't know there was anyone -this- irritated.

[skg.livejournal.com]

A funny thing is, I had a discussion with some co-workers about this yesterday (including a Jew, a Pagan, an atheist, a Catholic...you get my drift) and everyone was like, What war on Christmas? Most of them said they indiscriminately say Merry Christmas to people (the Jewish guy said he says that more often than Happy Chanukah, even to other Jewish folks).

So the whole thing is pretty farcical, as orangemike pointed out. This is all about pointing at the "War on Christmas" so the blatant incompetence over the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan and the War on the Environment can exit stage left.