Thursday, December 15, 2005

Bill O'Reilly "War on Christmas" lies, Falwell idiocy

Dispatches from the Culture Wars reports on a number of Bill O'Reilly fabrications in part of his campaign about a bogus "War on Christmas":

1. He claims that Saginaw, Michigan opposes people wearing red and green clothing. This is a complete fabrication.

2. He says the Plano, Texas school system tells children they can't wear green and red clothing. This is a complete fabrication.

3. He says the U.S. Postal Service no longer issues Christmas stamps with a religious theme. This is a misinterpretation of their decision not to issue new 37-cent stamps this Christmas because the price is going up to 39 cents on January 8 and they still have a huge inventory of 37-cent Madonna and Child stamps to sell this year.

4. Jerry Falwell's "Friend or Foe" campaign sent a demand letter to a Wisconsin school that was putting on a play called "The Little Tree's Christmas Gift" insisting that the song in that play (put together and copyrighted back in 1988) which is sung to the tune of "Silent Night" be changed back to the original words. O'Reilly claimed that "In Wisconsin, an elementary school changed the name of 'Silent Night' to 'Cold In the Night.'" The school has buckled under the pressure and removed that song from the program. This case is completely absurd--the play tells a story about a little Christmas tree, and the song in question was a song that the little tree sings, to the tune of "Silent Night." Who's really anti-Christmas here?

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