Sunday, December 04, 2005
Idol Worship
A friend calls my attention and yours to a column in the New York Times that points out that "merry Christmas" fascists (my phrase, not the columnist's) are actually demanding the complete and utter commercialization of Christmas. Ironic, no? Remember when that used to be considered a problem? A lot of the same people fluffing the war on Christmas once complained that the commercial aspects of the season got in the way of the spiritual.
(I wonder how many people who now claim to be offended when they are wished "happy holidays" or "season's greetings" never even noticed the phrases until this year. Ninety percent?)
The whole "war on Christmas" kerfuffle would be approaching Number One on the all-time list of stupidities inspired by conservative belief, if that position hadn't been locked down for all time last week by this post at Powerline--which, you may remember, was named Blog of the Year by Time magazine last year. Truly, there are scarcely words in the English language to describe the monumental dumbfuckitude contained in the first paragraph alone, which I will excerpt here to spare you from having to read the whole thing:
A friend calls my attention and yours to a column in the New York Times that points out that "merry Christmas" fascists (my phrase, not the columnist's) are actually demanding the complete and utter commercialization of Christmas. Ironic, no? Remember when that used to be considered a problem? A lot of the same people fluffing the war on Christmas once complained that the commercial aspects of the season got in the way of the spiritual.
(I wonder how many people who now claim to be offended when they are wished "happy holidays" or "season's greetings" never even noticed the phrases until this year. Ninety percent?)
The whole "war on Christmas" kerfuffle would be approaching Number One on the all-time list of stupidities inspired by conservative belief, if that position hadn't been locked down for all time last week by this post at Powerline--which, you may remember, was named Blog of the Year by Time magazine last year. Truly, there are scarcely words in the English language to describe the monumental dumbfuckitude contained in the first paragraph alone, which I will excerpt here to spare you from having to read the whole thing:
President Bush's speech at the Naval Academy [last week] was a brilliant exposition of his strategy in Iraq and in the war on terror. It was thematically similar to a number of other excellent speeches he has given over the past four years, many of which we have quoted and linked to, but it included a more detailed analysis of the progress of Iraqi units in taking over the defense of their country than we have seen before. It is a little-known fact, I'm afraid, that, in a series of speeches extending over a period of years, President Bush has articulated his policy vision more consistently and more eloquently than any President since Lincoln. His speeches have, for the most part, gone unheard, unread, and uncovered by the mainstream media. Let's hope this one is different in that regard.As it happens, I am currently reading The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words, by Ronald C. White, Jr., which examines the way Lincoln developed his major speeches and public letters, and analyzes his rhetorical style. The only way--the only way--a person could possibly equate the rhetorical style (and by extension, the thought process) of He Who Shall Not Be Named with that of Abraham Lincoln is to have lived his entire adult life with his head entirely up his ass. Such a statement represents idolatry that borders on mental illness. It's not so much bloggery as it is buggery.
