Forget naughty and nice, this year Santa’s got a political agenda
By Phil Bronstein | Related entries in News
Did you think political partisanship had been momentarily stun-gunned by Barack Obama’s outstretched arms? Just because Robert Gates gets to stay on?
No, no such thing when there are still plenty of opportunities to gloat or kick the departing Commander-in-Chief right in the Christmas tree on his way out the door.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, though the New York Sun, which first published that phrase in 1897, just went out of business for the second time. But he’s loaded and spraying the holiday room with unseasonable politics.
The viral story of the week was about Seattle artist Deborah Lawrence. She was asked by her Congressman – all members of Congress were tapped for this by First Lady Laura Bush – to make an ornament for the White House Christmas tree. The rabidly anti-Bush activist made what the Washington Post Reliable Source blog called “a lefty political statement”: she included in the design some miniature text applauding efforts to impeach George W. It was hung at 1600 Pennsylvania on the 18-plus foot fir from Crumpler, North Carolina, along with all the other balls submitted.
Ms. Lawrence said she was “convulsive” when she was first asked. “What could tempt you to cooperate with anything at the Bush White House?” Ms. Lawrence wrote in a diary of the events. “But when you’re a cultural worker with a populist ax to grind, you must hold your nose and do your job.” It must have been awkward making the thing with only one hand.
At first Mrs. Bush’s press secretary said they wouldn’t pull the ornament. “I would hope no one would take this as an opportunity to be divisive and partisan,” said Sally McDonough. But the First Lady changed her mind, which is her prerogative. “We reviewed the ornament,” Ms. McDonough said, “and Mrs. Bush deemed it inappropriate for the holiday tree.”
Though it didn’t make the tree, we can guess where the White House wanted Ms. Lawrence to put it. The suddenly-famous artist was in DC for a reception, along with the other artists, when she heard the bad news about her art work.
“I’d like to get it back, but that’s probably not going to happen,” she said, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. But then she added this, which the Post blog might have called radiGrinch if they’d thought about it: “I don’t like Christmas.”
Conservative commentators didn’t even stop to notice that Xmas-bashing comment before opening up. Michelle Malkin, on her blog, said Ms. Lawrence and her impeachment ornament suffered from Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS), by which Ms. Malkin means crazy people who hate the current President.
Mr. and Mrs. Bush, in the meantime, have not sat idly by while this is going on. They themed the White House holiday this year as “A Red, White, and Blue Christmas”, to distinguish it from, say, a red and white Canadian Christmas or a green, red, and white Mexican Christmas.
When did Christmas stop being a religious and retailer holiday?
Of course some San Franciscans cannot resist their own politicizing of the season. According to the San Francisco Citizen blog, the City’s 79th annual tree-lighting ceremony set for tonight in Golden Gate Park will be “Obama-themed,” complete with a miniature train underneath featuring “a huge Obama logo along with a few other Obama references.”
If you’re going, make sure you’re stylish in a limited edition Obama-crested fleece jacket, as advertised on Wonkette.
Bill O’Reilly and Ms. Malkin take note. There’s at least a day’s worth of outrage over that.
Some people are in the true Christmas spirit, though, and not still embedded in partisan political snowdrifts.
In Augsburg, Germany, according to Australia’s Courier Mail, citing AP, a priest found a real, live newborn baby boy in the nativity scene in his church’s altar. Police later came across the mother who said she’d given up the infant because she was in “a difficult personal situation.” She had named the boy “Christian.”
The church is raising money to help her care for her new baby.
The story doesn’t say if she’d come from Nebraska.
For more, read Bronstein at Large.
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December 4th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The artist was petty. The critics just as petty. I think we probably have enough exploitation of Christmas without throwing silly politicial spats into the mix. Oh well.
December 4th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I honestly can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing under the circumstances. How often do you get an opportunity (regardless of how petty) to kick the guy who has been kicking us for the last 8 years. I think my ornament would have been decorated with little indictments post dated for 21 January listing Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, etc…… On another note, I don’t feel it’s crazy to hate Bush, afterall he hated me first. Do you think anyone will ever acknowledge the extent of the laws that have been broken by theses people or will we be forced to treat it like a reality show and just make jokes about it?
December 4th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Petty and inappropriate. The White House is our house, not his anyway. The office deserves respect regardless of how utterly incompetent and loathsome the current occupant may be. I hate it when the left acts petty and mean. Let’s leave that to the far right where it belongs.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I agree with Alan and mike. If she felt that strongly about not doing anything “for Bush” she could have just refused to do it. Simple. The reaction to it is over the top as well. Just a little sneer and pointing out the pettiness is quite enough.