George F. Will accuses Huckabee of engaging in the LDS equivalent of the anti-Semitic blood libel. To which Ross responds: oh, puh-leeze:
An abstruse theological point that makes Mormonism seem weird and possibly creepy is the equivalent of saying that Jews like to drink your kids' blood? Moreover, what Huckabee said isn't even technically a libel: The Jews don't actually use the blood of gentile children to make Passover matzoh, so far as I know, whereas Mormons do, in fact, believe that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers - not necessarily in the sense that most people understand the term, but in a sense that goes to the heart of the LDS Church's theological differences with orthodox Christianity.
In a subsequent post, Ross shows how Will's freak-out over Huck's supposedly conservative heresies on economics is totally overblown, adding:
I have to say, it would be a lot easier for my substantial Huckaskepticism to harden into outright opposition to his candidacy if his critics didn't seem quite so bent on turning their anti-Huckabee sentiments into an ideological witch hunt.
True dat. I find the more I research Huckabee's actual positions, the less there is to like -- or to be more precise, the less different he seems in substance from his opponents. The case for Huck comes down mostly to one of style and general orientation, which is not unimportant. Still, read the words of conservative Huckaphobe Michael Graham, writing in the Boston Herald, who's starting to feel some sympathy for Huck over these pissy attacks. Excerpts:
But watching the media’s discomfort and disdain for a Christ-centered Christmas, their palpable paranoia over a set of bookshelves, suddenly average Americans could like Mike.Every parent who has grumbled over a kid’s Christmas-less “winter concert,” every employee asked to replace “Merry Christmas” with “Season’s Greetings,” every person of faith put under the glare of suspicion for having an Advent calendar in their cubicle - they saw in Mike Huckabee an ally under siege.
Liberals, both in politics and the media, insist that they are not against the public practice of religion. They resent the implication that opposing, say, a creche at City Hall, means they oppose faith in general.
But then a simple “Merry Christmas” from Mike Huckabee, and their anti-religious resentment is revealed again.
True dat x 2. But liberals weren't the only ones attacking Huck for that ad.
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Well, Andy, last I checked Christmas was a religious holiday, so it technically "belongs" to people who celebrate it as such.
According to the Supreme Court (upholding Ganulin v. United States), Christmas has a valid secular purpose (commerce), and is celebrated by non-Christians as well as Christians (Christmas trees and gift-giving and family time with no thought to the religious significance), and can therefore be a federal holiday without violating the non-establishment clause. So Christians who celebrate it as a holy day need to just carry on and celebrate it with due reverence and ignore the rest of us.
I've never met anyone who objected to being told "Merry Christmas!" Has someone actually ever been fired for saying it? Can you cite a case? Not that I don't believe people could be that stupid, but it does kind of sound apocryphal.
Mrs. Pringle
Mrs. Pringle
I've never met anyone who objected to being told "Merry Christmas!" Has someone actually ever been fired for saying it? Can you cite a case? Not that I don't believe people could be that stupid, but it does kind of sound apocryphal.
Well, employees could always unite under some sort of collective banner to bargain with the employer, demanding they allow them to say whatever they wished to say, or they'd all walk.
Now that I think of it, if enough employees got together and threatened to walk out, they could ask for quite a lot of things. It is certainly an interesting concept, I will propose it to the next Republican politician I run into. These 'unions of workers' could stop the war on Christmas in its tracks!
True dat x 2. But liberals weren't the only ones attacking Huck for that ad.?
'Weren't the only ones'? Were they attacking Huckabee at all for the ad? As many people may be aware, I am somewhat on the left, and I only read this and few other conservative blogs...most of what I read is on the left. None of the major players that I read have attacked the ad. Of course, I'm not some sort of blog deity, for all I know I'm just missing all it.
But the three people talking about this, the only places I've read anything about this, are here, John Cole, and Sullivan, all of which are on the right (to some, rather disgruntled, extent) and all of which are simply commenting at the fact the right is attacking Huckabee, as it's confirming exactly what they think about the relationship of the GOP toward Christianity...the GOP is just using it to get elected.
No one on the left seems to be talking about it at all, except to link to those guys. kos, one of the few who has, was rather sarcastic about the attacks ago: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/19/25747/037
If you don't mean bloggers, OTOH, the only attacks I've heard about were from Peggy Noonan, Ron Paul, and Bill Donahue, none of which are exactly card-carrying members of the left.
ScurvyOaks
"I'm not sure why we are somehow obliged to vote for a liberal just because he really, really, really believes in Jesus."
Sorta odd that the only person who's apparently letting his Christian faith guide his political beliefs has decided that, inexplicably, social services aren't all bad, and that the Bible doesn't say anything about lowering taxes or invading countries.
Wait, not 'odd'...'expected', that's the word I meant.
(Reposted here instead of the wrong place it ended up somehow.)
Franklin:
So now you're saying don't say **anything** and treat it like a normal, humdrum time of year? That seems a little extreme, too.
(Or worse, try to ethnically/religiously profile our customers -- I guess it's OK to wish the lady who gives me a credit card with an Italian last name "Merry Christmas"? You might want to check that out with Beliefnet's health editor Holly Rossi -- who's Jewish ...)
But in accordance with your wishes, I won't say happy anything to you :-)
Actually, Larry, what I'm saying is what I said in another thread, which I will reiterate here for you intended for all and sundry: "It's the culture, stupid."
I don't mean to be picking on you. No one in a right mind expects a person to know another person's religion on sight. Not all Indians are Hindu, not all Americans are Christian, not all Goths are pagan, the "nots" go on and on. It's like the idiot owner of Geno's Steaks here in Philly, with his "speak English" sign. Taking insult (or bemoaning the inconvenience, even) from being confronted with something not American is, in a word, ridiculous. The strident voices on both sides of this question should go out and get a life, or something.
I'm off to celebrate the solstice tonight. If you (general) are at all interested, the details are at http://pagan-arts.org/.
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