Holidays at the White House

The President and First Lady handle tough questions from the new White House Press Corps

One of the biggest pitfalls

in trying to please and appease the religious right wing of the American political system is that you're not dealing with reasonable, forgiving people. If you don't always do exactly what they want, you will go to hell or get eaten by alligators. Just like in college when you slept with that girl you met one lonely night at the bar, George Bush is paying the consequences of getting into bed with the wrong people.

Case in point, the religious right has been screaming and crying this holiday season about the defamation of Christmas. Even Bill O'Reilly has gotten into the swing of things, making absurd claims like "people saying Happy Holidays is offensive to Christians". Reasonable people like you understand that there can be more than one religion and therefore, more than one religious celebration this time of year. 99% of American people would not be offended if you said Happy Holidays. Most people have much more important things to worry about.

Most of the jews and athiests that I know are so accustomed to being told Merry Christmas in our Christmas-centric sociery, they don't give a shit when someone wishes them a Merry Christmas. After all, it's a sentiment where you're wishing someone well, not asking them to participate in your particular religious celebration.

Where Prez Bush got into trouble was sending out his Holiday Greeting cards this season. While I realize that President Bush probably had little to nothing to do with the decision about what to send out for the Holidays this year, I was impressed that whomever did make that decision understands the Christianity isn't the only show in town these days.

Tolerance is a huge problem for these religious zealots and always has been. Somehow they've deluded themselves into believing that they have ownership of the holiday season. They think through boycotts of retailers and public statements that they can force the rest of us to be intolerant right along with them. The White House Holiday card shows tolerance by not favoring one tradition over another.

The next thing you know, Laura Bush will start hanging out with Jews....