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| this is me retching |
| 12.07.05 (9:52 am) [edit] |
[b]Conservatives miffed by Bush `holiday' card[/b]Christmas not named in White House mailing By Alan Cooperman The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- 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. But some conservative Christians are reacting as if Bush stuck coal in their stockings. "This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture," said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Bush "claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn't act like one," said Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com. "I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it." [u]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." [/u]They celebrated when House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) insisted that the sparkling spectacle on the Capitol lawn should be called the Capitol Christmas Tree, not a holiday spruce. Then along comes a generic season's greeting from the White House, paid for by the Republican National Committee. The cover art, from a painting by artist Jamie Wyeth, is also secular, if not humanist: It shows the presidential pets--two dogs and a cat--frolicking on a snowy White House lawn. "Certainly President and Mrs. Bush, because of their faith, celebrate Christmas," said Susan Whitson, the first lady's press secretary. "Their cards in recent years have included best wishes for a holiday season, rather than Christmas wishes, because they are sent to people of all faiths." That is the same rationale offered by major retailers for generic holiday catalogs, and it is accepted by groups such as the National Council of Churches. [u]"I think it's more important to put Christ back into our war planning than into our Christmas cards," said the council's general secretary, Rev. Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman.[/u] `Political correctness' blamed But the White Houses explanation does not satisfy groups that have grown in number in recent years that believe 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." One of the generals on the pro-Christmas side is Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss. "Sometimes it's hard to tell whether this is sinister--it's the purging of Christ from Christmas--or whether it's just political correctness run amok," he said. "I think in the case of the White House, it's just political correctness." Wildmon does not give retailers the same benefit of the doubt. [u]This year, he has called for a consumer boycott of Target stores because the chain issued a holiday advertising circular that did not mention Christmas[/u]. "It bothers me that the White House card leaves off any reference to Jesus, while we've got Ramadan celebrations in the White House," Wildmon said. At the Catholic League, Donohue had just announced a boycott of the Lands' End catalog when he received his White House holiday card. True, he said, the Bushes included a verse from Psalm 28, but Psalms are in the Old Testament and do not mention Jesus' birth. "They'd better address this, because they're no better than the retailers who have lost the will to say `Merry Christmas,"' he said. Donohue said he was not mollified by a letter from Lands' End saying it "adopted the `holiday' terminology as a way to comply with one of the basic freedoms granted to all Americans: freedom of religion." |
posted by: RedTigress (reply)
post date: 12.07.05 (10:52 am)
wretching is with a 'w'
posted by: JT (reply)
post date: 12.07.05 (1:03 pm)
Reply to: RedTigress
Thanks, but actually:
Main Entry: retch
Pronunciation: 'rech, esp British 'rEch
Function: verb
Etymology: (assumed) Middle English rechen to spit, retch, from Old English hr[AE]can to spit, hawk; akin to Old Norse hrækja to spit
transitive senses : VOMIT 1
intransitive senses : to make an effort to vomit; also : VOMIT
- retch noun
"Wretch" is:
1 : a miserable person : one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune
2 : a base, despicable, or vile person
posted by: almsthvn (reply)
post date: 12.08.05 (3:45 am)
*shakes head* I worry about this country.
posted by: almsthvn (reply)
post date: 12.08.05 (7:16 am)
Reply to: Orange
exactly! WTF!
posted by: JT (reply)
post date: 12.08.05 (9:49 am)
Reply to: Orange
Okay, I think it's time to write next year's Target ads:
"Jesus wants you to shop at Target for his birthday!"
What do you guys think? Will that put the Christ back into Christmas sufficiently for the religious right?
posted by: surrogate (reply)
post date: 12.15.05 (7:52 am)
Reply to: JT
Excuse me. I believe you meant to say that Jesus wants you to do your "HOLIDAY" shopping at Target.
Get with the program, geez.
posted by: JT (reply)
post date: 12.18.05 (9:47 am)
Reply to: surrogate
My bad, my bad!
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