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| Bush:
Christmas Smishmas |
| Visitor
Comments: This stuff
may be irrelevant to some who don't
celebrate "christmas". Yet for an
american President who claims to be a
"christian", this seems to be more
info proving that Bush is a far from what
most people call "christian" as it
gets.
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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!"
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
inside. 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 A. 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."
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."
They celebrated when House Speaker J. Dennis
Hastert (R-Ill.) insisted that the sparkling
spectacle on the Capitol lawn should be called the
Capitol Christmas Tree, not a holiday spruce.
'Sent to people of all faiths'
Then along comes a generic season's greeting from
the White House, paid for by the Republican
National Committee. The cover art 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, Laura Bush'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 catalogues, and it
is accepted by groups such as the National Council
of Churches. "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, the Rev. Bob Edgar, a former
Democratic congressman.
But the White House's explanation does not satisfy
the groups -- which 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. 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. Last year, he aimed a
similar boycott at Macy's Inc., which averted a
repeat this December by proclaiming "Merry
Christmas" in its advertising and in-store
displays.
"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. "What's going on there?"
At the Catholic League, Donohue had just announced
a boycott of the Lands' End catalogue 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 that Wal-Mart, facing a threatened
boycott, added a Christmas page to its Web site
and fired a customer relations employee who wrote
a letter linking Christmas to "Siberian
shamanism." 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."
"Ninety-six percent of Americans celebrate
Christmas," Donohue said. "Spare me the
diversity lecture."
Diversity has been a hallmark of White House
greeting cards for some time, according to Mary
Evans Seeley of Tampa, Fla., author of
"Season's Greetings From the White
House." The last presidential Christmas card
that mentioned Christmas was in 1992. It was sent
by George H.W. and Barbara Bush, parents of the
current president.
Seeley said the first president to send out true
Christmas cards, as opposed to signed photographs
or handwritten letters, was Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"Merry Christmas From the President and Mrs.
Roosevelt," said his first annual card, in
1933.
Politicization of a holiday
Like many modern touches, the generic New Year's
card was introduced to the White House by John and
Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1962, they had Hallmark
print 2,000 cards, of which 1,800 cards said
"The President and Mrs. Kennedy Wish You a
Blessed Christmas" and 200 said "With
Best Wishes for a Happy New Year."
Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson continued that
tradition for a couple of years, but it required
keeping track of Christian and non-Christian
recipients. Beginning in 1966, they wished
everyone a "Joyous Christmas," and no
president has attempted the two-card trick since.
Seeley dates the politicization of the White House
Christmas card to Richard M. Nixon, who increased
the number of recipients tenfold, to 40,000, in
his first year. The numbers since have snowballed,
hitting 125,000 under Jimmy Carter, topping
400,000 under Bill Clinton and rising to more than
a million under the current Bushes, with each
president's political party paying the bill.
The wording, meanwhile, has often flip-flopped.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter put "Merry
Christmas" in their 1977 card and then
switched to "Holiday Season" for the
next three years. Ronald and Nancy Reagan,
similarly, began with a "Joyous
Christmas" in 1981 and 1982 but doled out
generic holiday wishes from 1983 to 1988. The
elder President Bush stayed in the "Merry
Christmas" spirit all four years, and the
Clintons opted for inclusive greetings for all of
their eight years.
The current Bush has straddled the divide,
offering generic greetings along with an Old
Testament verse. To some religious conservatives,
that makes all the difference.
"There's a verse from Scripture in it. I
don't mind that at all, as long as we don't try to
pretend we're not a nation under God," said
the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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