Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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One of the sadder spectacles in the mainstream media over the past year or two has been the slow, steady unraveling of Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. Once something of a new Democrat willing to challenge liberal orthodoxy and credit conservatives where they’re due, Dionne now is venturing closer and closer to Krugmanland with each column. (In my humble opinion.)

Today Dionne writes about the Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas debate. Now, it’s easy to get irritated when you hear Bill O‘Reilly proclaiming that “nobody sticks up for Christmas except me. Did Peter Jennings stick up for Christmas last night? I don't believe he did. How about Brian Williams, did he? Did Rather stick up for Christmas? How about Jim Lehrer — did he? Did Larry King — hello — I love Christmas — did he? No.” (Yes, as usual, it’s all about him.)

But while the old Dionne would have written about the need to make space for the religious in public life, today’s column makes only a glancing comment about intolerance among the anti-religious and spends most of its column-inches denouncing those who want to see some mangers, trees, and actual Christmas carols as “pounding” those of a different tribe.

There are so many unfair and inaccurate characterizations in Dionne’s latest - a vast army of straw men - that one has to go through it slowly to keep track.

When I encounter fellow Christians during these days of comfort and joy, I wish them a Merry Christmas. When I encounter Jewish friends, I wish them Happy Hanukah. And when I encounter people whose religious beliefs are unknown to me, I wish them Happy Holidays. Does this make me a Christian sellout? Or does it make me an authentic Christian?

Who has been arguing that wishing Jews “Happy Hanukah” is a trait of a “Christian sellout”? And is it really that outrageous to use the word “inauthentic” when commercials rewrite “We wish you a Merry Christmas” to avoid saying the Christ-word?

The Christmas wars seem hotter this year.

Already we’re not having a debate, argument, or discussion; Dionne has ruled that the dispute is “a war.” Deploy the heavy artillery! The secularists have taken Macy’s!

Listening to conservative talk shows and watching the lawsuits fly around,..

Whew. The seventh sentence, and we know which side’s talk shows are to blame.

…you'd think there's a conspiracy to block celebrations of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Nothing conspiratorial about it. There are a bunch of folks who don’t want Christmas carols played at school concerts, don’t want teens wearing red and green to the school “holiday dance,” and who don’t want to see a nativity anywhere outside a church.

Politicians who speak of "the holidays" instead of "Christmas" now face angry Christian protests. What's happening?

Again, one side is described as angry. Is it really anger? Or just exasperation and irritation that the U.S. Capitol has a “Holiday Tree”? As if the tree might also be an icon of Kwanzah and Hanukah.

Partly this is an old fight that reflects our First Amendment's dueling religion clauses. One warns against government entanglement with religion. The other guarantees its free exercise.

Many of our fights over religious freedom pit those who fear government meddling with faith against those who worry that isolating government from religion interferes with its free exercise. That's the civilized version of the argument. The Christmas confrontations are particularly prickly because they come down to competing struggles for respect. Some Christians see the broader culture as unremittingly hostile to their faith and wonder why it's easier to celebrate Santa, Rudolph and the Grinch than to sing praise to Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and nonbelievers, meanwhile, insist that government should not push the faith of the majority into the faces of those who do not share it.

Notice the loaded language. I don’t like having anything “pushed in my face,” except maybe doughnuts. No one likes having anything “pushed in their face.” Apparently a school choir singing “Silent Night” has been transmogrified into “pushing faith in others' faces.”

This second view is now being dismissed as "political correctness," an increasingly meaningless phrase invoked to attack any point of view that conflicts with conservative preferences. If respecting the rights of religious minorities is "political correctness," that makes Thomas Jefferson and the First Amendment "politically correct."

If the phrase “political correctness” has become meaningless and tired, complaining about the meaninglessness of the phrase is about one nanosecond less tired and meaningless.

It has been said that the definition of a liberal is someone so open-minded that he can't take his own side in an argument. But some arguments are, by their very nature, illiberal because each side demands that we ignore the legitimate claims being made by the other. Talk shows love such debates — the Christmas one is a classic — because everybody gets really mad without resolving anything.

It shouldn't be hard to acknowledge that there is prejudice in some sectors of our society against those who hold traditionalist, evangelical or fundamentalist religious views. The familiarity of such phrases as "yahoos," "hypocritical Puritans" and "Bible thumpers" is evidence of such prejudice.

There is something defective about a religious tolerance open to every expression of religion except for the faith of those who believe most passionately. One can oppose the political views of religious conservatives and still understand why they are tired of being called names.

I think the little flickering light in the last two paragraphs is the old Dionne trying to get out.

But such respect cannot come at the expense of the rights of those who are not Christian. At the personal level: What in the world is "Christian" about insisting on saying "Merry Christmas" to a devout Jew or Hindu who might reasonably view the statement as a sign of disrespect?

What is disrespectful about wishing someone “Merry Christmas”?

At the level of government: Is it really "Christian" for a religious majority to press its advantage over religious minorities, including nonbelievers?

What is “pressing its advantage”? It sounds sinister, but I have yet to see the Christian majority bursting into people houses, putting up trees against the resident’s will, and forcing them to drink eggnog and sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”

Personally, I am partial to seasonal celebrations that acknowledge our religious diversity by allowing traditions to express themselves in their integrity. This is better than allowing only a commercial Christmas mush that satisfies no one except the retailers. Trying to delete every form of religious expression from the public square leads to foolishness. But one thing is even more foolish: for the religious majority to feel "oppressed" by a public etiquette designed to honor the rights of those outside its ranks.

Notice how the pro-Happy-Holidays argument started out as a prevention of government entanglement in religion, and now is merely “etiquette.” Wishing others Merry Christmas has been downgraded from illegal to merely rude.

An Orthodox Jewish friend attended this year's Hanukah party at the White House. My friend appreciated President Bush's gesture to his community and was surprised and pleased when the military band struck up the old Hanukah song "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel." You wonder if the talk-show hosts and conservative direct-mail guys will now attack the president for being "politically correct."

What the hell is he talking about? Which talk-show hosts and conservative direct-mail guys have called for banning Hanukah? Who has said the White House shouldn’t have a Hanukah party? How many Christians get up in arms if the school choir sings “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel”? I can’t speak for all Christians, but I like Hanukah. If there’s anything Christmas is missing, it’s potato pancakes!

The great Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that "the chief source of man's inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men." I fear that in these Christmas debates, Christians are behaving not as Christians but as a tribe: "We will pound them if they get in the way of our customs and rituals."

Having speculated that talk show hosts will try to outlaw the Dreidel song at the White House, Dionne revels in the assumption of bad faith on those he disagrees with, accusing them in print of wishing to “pound” those who aren’t part of the tribe.

Tribal behavior is antithetical to the spirit of peace and good will. In this season, we ought to be taking the most expansive possible view of our obligations to others.

And I’m so glad that the other side has taken that “most expansive possible view” by trying to keep Christmas carols out of school concerts, the word Christmas out of sales and advertisements, and insanely calling ornaments and trees as symbols of a “holiday.”

What you do this season is up to you. If your reaction to my “Merry Christmas” is a rude gesture, well, that’s your right. Just stop acting like you have the right to decide what I’m allowed to do.

[Posted 12/21 11:33 AM]