Christmas 2012: I II III IV All Posts
See also: War Against Christmas 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999
Before Christmas, George Soros’s Media Matters operation had an attack on The O’Reilly Factor’s Bill O’Reilly, constantly denounced by War On Christmas Deniers as the point man in the Khristmaskampf resistance:
Bill O'Reilly Covers The "War On Christmas" More Than Actual Wars, AgainO'Reilly Again Covered The "War On Christmas" More Than Three Times As Much As Actual Conflicts In Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, And Gaza.
By Ben Dimiero, Matt Gertz, & Rob Savillo, December 19, 2012
From December 1 through 18, The O'Reilly Factor spent more than 55 minutes on the "War on Christmas" but only about 17 minutes covering military conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Gaza.[Mor e]
MediaMatters included this helpful graphic, which gives you an idea of the amount of coverage given to the War On Christmas by O’Reilly:
Of course, this is not actually that much. The O’Reilly Factor broadcast a total of 720 minutes—an hour every weekday—over that period. And, while 55 minutes of airtime on Fox Network would be a lot if you had to buy it as ads, it’s not “flooding the zone”.
Anyway, O’Reilly isn’t a war correspondent, he’s a Culture War correspondent. And the War On Christmas is a major front in the Culture War—much more so than the real, and basically pointless, War in Afghanistan.
I checked, and MediaMatters own site gives Google search results that look like this
This is a higher ratio than O’Reilly’s. But they’re not war correspondents, either. Part of their left-wing media criticism raison d’être is to practice War On Christmas Denial.
And not all of what they call Bill O’Reilly’s “War on Christmas” rant—an eight minute segment—is actually about Christmas.[Video] It’s actually about “Secular forces on the march”, and features a clip of Harry Belafonte saying “The only thing left for Barack Obama to do is to work like third world dictator and just throw all these guys in jail. “
As VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow has pointed out, we see some signs on War On Christmas resistance but “the Christophobes are in possession of the field.” (See WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS 2012: The Eight Stages Of Christophobia.)
Governor Lincoln Chafee, after being exposed by O’Reilly last year over the Rhode Island “Holiday Tree” threatened to cancel the tree lighting entirely, and then immediately backtracked. [See Christmas chaos in Rhode Island, O'Reilly Factor, November 27, 2012] However, Chafee did agree to be interviewed by Bill O’Reilly and defend his position.
Chafee appears to think that calling it a “Holiday Tree” is a major religious liberty issue. Born in 1953, he’s part of the last generation of Americans to have experienced prayer in schools, which was banned by the Supreme Court when he was ten.
CHAFEE: Do you remember? Did you have to go to public school and have to say the "Lord's Prayer" in public school? I remember it.O'REILLY: No, I went to Catholic school.
Chafee thinks he’s normal, and everyone else his out of step, especially Fox News and Bill O’Reilly. O'Reilly disagrees, and makes an important point below:
CHAFEE: And I just said continue what the previous governor has done and that's what I have did. You like to make a lot of controversy so all I can say is on this one you are wrong.O'REILLY: Governor, you're the guy making the controversy. All I want to do is keep the traditions of Christmas that make most Americans happy. The polls show 90 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas and they want to call it a Christmas tree.
You are in the minority. You are imposing your will and you're making people unhappy in a season of joy. That's not right. You are not doing the right thing, Governor.[VDARE.com emphasis added.]
CHAFEE: I don't make anybody happy. I just said do what the previous governors did.
O'REILLY: I know you are not making anybody happy. Everybody is unhappy with you. All right, the atheists want you to burn the holiday tree.
CHAFEE: Merry Christmas.
O'REILLY: They want to just burn it. All right, come on you know I'm right — you know I'm right, in your heart you know I'm right.
CHAFEE: No. Your show, Fox News—you guys are too angry.
O'REILLY: I'm not angry.
CHAFEE: This is an angry network. Listen to you—yelling.
O'REILLY: I want our traditions to be respected. That's all.
….
O'REILLY: And by the way, the Governor gave the good people of Rhode Island exactly 30 minutes today. 30 minutes to attend the tree lighting ceremony. Why the short notice? He didn't want protesters. [O'Reilly battles Gov. Lincoln Chafee over 'holiday tree', November 30, 2012 ]
Bill O’Reilly hasn’t reported further the War on Christmas since December 18, from what I can find in Google News. And Media Matters gloated that Fox News (which is, after all, just another corporation) followed an O’Reilly “rant” defense of Christmas with a Happy Holidays logo:
But Bill O’Reilly isn’t really the point man in the War On Christmas (although VDARE.com commends him for continuing to report it). That role is taken by grass roots Americans, who fight back at the level of the School Board and town square.
Paraphrasing the 1897 editorialist who told Virginia O’Hanlon, that “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” I can say that yes, VDARE.com readers, there is a War on Christmas:
“As long as Christophobic “secularism” is enforced in all public places, and as long as Americans will put up with ever-expanding Diversity Sensitivity, resistance to the War on Christmas will continue.”
James Fulford [Email him] is a writer and editor for VDARE.com.
