The Fake War on Christmas Is Not Meant to Be Won

It is meant to be continuous.

From the WaPo:

Pope Francis is waging a war on Christmas. Christians should join him.

Donald Trump's version of Christmas has nothing to do with Christ.

Last week, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly had good news for his viewers — the war on Christmas had finally ended. “We won!” O’Reilly declared.

What were O’Reilly’s metrics for measuring this great victory over the secularists who he saw as so hell-bent on ruining Christianity’s great feast? Simple: The number of stores using “Merry Christmas!” instead of “Happy Holidays!” has increased in the past decade.

But as O’Reilly noted, there are still some companies out there who won’t oblige with the victor’s demands that Christmas greetings be done the right way. Don’t worry, O’Reilly assured his viewers, there’s a new president in town, “and that’s bad news for them, because Donald Trump is on the case.”

...

Unfortunately for O’Reilly and Trump, there’s still one person they must defeat in this self-perpetuating war on Christmas. It’s Pope Francis, the 80-year-old leader of 1.2 billion Catholics across the globe.

“Christmas is a charade!” Francis said last year...

So it seems like the right time to haul out the traditional  Fake War on Christmas ornaments from 2005...

"My mission is to make it up to the North Pole before the 25th.

There's a Jolly Old Elf up there who's gone insane.

I'm supposed to kill him."

Then, later...

Evil Liberal: "Who are all these people?"

Bill O’Reilly: "Yeah, well... They think you have come to take him

away. I hope that isn't true."

Evil Liberal: "Take who away ?"

Bill O’Reilly: "Him. Saint Nick. The Big Elf. These are all his Helpers, as far as you can see."

Evil Liberal: "Could we, uh, talk to Saint Nick?"

Bill O’Reilly: "Hey, man, you don't talk to the Saint. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a elf-toymaker in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll, uh, well, you'll say hello to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you, and he won't even notice you.

And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you on his lap, and he'll say do you know that “ant” is the middle word in Santa? If you can know who has been naughty and who as been nice when all about you are getting shitty toys and socks and blaming it on you…if you can trust your elves when all men doubt you -- I mean I'm no, I can't -- I'm a little elf, I'm a little elf, he's, he's The Claus, man.

I should have been a bag of remaindered WalMart Barbies being sold out the trunk of an El Dorado on a dead-drunk Sunday Morning on Maxwell Street -- I mean --

And finally, the tragic denouement.

"The ho-ho-horror. The ho-ho-horror..."

From the Department of Shit You Already Knew

Of course there's a double standard.

There has always been.

And looking-with-alarm and acting shocked! shocked! every time it slaps you in the face quit be interesting years ago because you and I and every other sentient being in this country damn well knows there will continue to be a double standard just as long as "legitimate" news outlets are permitted to continue to pretend that Fox News is something other than the propaganda arm of the American Fascist Party.

So no, feckless, Beltway liberal Clarence Page, you have it wrong:

I believe the main difference between how we treat O'Reilly and Williams is in our expectations. From the major network evening newscasts, we expect the real news with real facts and journalists who try to at least sound objective. From O'Reilly, we expect a lot of yarn-spinning and angry shots on behalf of "the little guy in America" against all the "pinheads."

"We" don't figure into this equation anywhere. All that matters is that every time Crazy Uncle Liberty turns on Bill O'Reilly, he thinks he is getting the news and he reacts accordingly. He takes what this liar says as gospel and will defend this liar like a wolverine on a three-day mean drunk, and everyone in your industry damn well knows it.

And, no, again. feckless, Beltway liberal Clarence Page, you have it wrong, again.

O'Reilly helped set the expectations low. He is less of a conventional nightly news anchor than a partisan pundit. Think of him as a "Daily Show" for the blue-collar right but with fewer laughs.

O'Reilly is not some humorless, blue collar version of "The Daily Show". "The Daily Show" -- which tells you straight up that it is intended as comedy -- takes enormous pains not to flat out fucking lie to its audience and then brazen and bulldoze their way out of it when they're caught.

Pretty much "The Daily Show"'s entire schtick consists of pointing their camera's at the daily media and political travesties that are killing this country and asking, "Can you believe this shit?" with a twist of sharp and bitter humor.

And pretty much Bill O'Reilly's  entire schtick consists of committing those daily media and political travesties at which "The Daily Show" points it's camera.

And if you really can't see the difference, you, feckless, Beltway liberal Clarence Page, are officially part of the problem.

Meanwhile, Supreme Commander Bill O'Reilly

responds to terrifying news from the Federal Egg Answering Room...

Shorter O'Reilly: Surround everyone with everything we've got!

Mobilize every fighting unit and every weapon we can lay our hands on!
I want... I want three full-scale global nuclear alerts with every army, navy and air force unit on eternal standby!
...