The sheer ugliness of Bill O'Reilly

All right. Did you hear what Bill O'Reilly said about the so-called "war on Christmas"? Take a look:

I am not going to let oppressive, totalitarian, anti-Christian forces in this country diminish and denigrate the holiday and the celebration. I am not going to let it happen. I'm gonna use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that.

You know what he's upset about, don't you? That people say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" in stores. What kind of Christian would want to bring horror into the world of people who have the good manners to use an inclusive greeting on the off-chance that they might not be talking to a Christian? Saying "Happy Holidays" is nothing new, by the way. It certainly goes back to my childhood at least (as does "Season's Greetings") and I'm no spring chicken.

This is really one massive attempt at distracting the populace. Here's what one commenter on Smirking Chimp had to say about it:

The silly uproar over Christmas is just another play to cover up a failed presidency. You might think it is another flagrant attempt to stir up the fundamentalist base, but that is really a side issue. The primary goal is to get opponents of the Chimp to expend energy on a topic that has no real world implications. At the end of the day the whole fuss is resolved by mediocre observations about how it is a tradition in the US to respect everybody's hallucinations, and then everyone goes back to sleep. The Chimp's lectures on the war have a similar objective. His handlers don't aim to convince anyone. They just want you to get bored and go to sleep. If nothing else, it takes your mind of Scooter Libby and Tom DeLay. These guys are just trying to run out the clock while they finish ransacking the nation.

They are ransacking the nation. While all this hateful silliness about Christmas has been going on, Congress has passed four new tax cuts which, despite the cuts in desperately needed social programs, will only enlarge the already terrifyingly large deficit. And in the meantime, the right-wingers want to coerce people into using the December greeting that's associated with their religion. Well, they sure went to a different Sunday School than I did. I was taught that Christianity was about loving your enemies, doing good to those who despitefully use you, and taking care of the needy. I've yet to see any real Christian spirit among the right wing goons making so much noise today.