Yeah, I know, a day with posts on a Richard Cohen column and Sarah Palin’s War-On-Christmas book might seem lazy, but these people won’t go away, so they have to be re-mocked now and then.
And yes, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas has now officially been released into the national bloodstream, Lord help us. I don’t think I’m masochistic enough to actually read the book–maybe during Lent if I’ve been really bad–but couldn’t resist Dan Amira’s quick review of the audiobook, where you can hear Sarah’s own inimitable voice read Sarah’s own inimitable words:
The book is part tribute to the joys of Christmas, part how-to guide for oppressed Christians looking for ways to fight back against whiny and litigious secularists, and part manifesto on the general superiority of Christianity over atheism. Palin, throughout, appears incapable of fathoming why a business catering to people from all walks of life may prefer to use inclusive holiday-season language in promotional items, or why a non-Christian may not appreciate a government institution expressing a preference for Christianity over other religions. To hear her tell it, such attitudes imperil America’s dedication to religious freedom itself.
I’m tempted to launch into my annual rant about the shameful weakness and egotism of Christians who identify themselves with actual martyrs because they have to put up with the indignity of “Happy Holidays” signs or do without state support for their faith–but I’ll save it for Advent. For now, it’s enough to note that Amira’s piece is accompanied by a festive cartoon of St. Joan of the Tundra next to a Xmas tree whose ornaments provide links to a few cuts from the audiobook. My immediate favorite was this:
It’s about that little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes who arrived long before “Hope and Change” became political manipulation.
Leave it to Palin to accuse Obama of appropriating the words “hope and change” from Christianity for political purposes when she’s in the midst of appropriating the Feast of the Nativity for political and commercial purposes. She truly has no shame.
