If a Holiday Tree Fell in the Woods...

Thank God (or, at least, the Christian God) that the Republican leadership in Congress has finally found an issue to unite the country and revitalize the party — Christmas trees!

The first salvo was fired this week when House Speaker Dennis Hastert took a break from defending the president’s failed Iraq war policy and dodging ethical violations by a growing list of GOP officials by boldly renaming the “Holiday Tree” on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol the newly christened “Capitol Christmas Tree.”

Said a spokesman for Hastert, “The speaker believes a Christmas tree is a Christmas tree, and it is as simple as that.”

Of course, the move mirrors the effort by the Christian Right to kick the word “holiday” out of the holidays and remind everybody that its really all about their interpretation of Christ — hence the word “Christmas” after all.

In fact, the speaker’s tree renaming came just days after Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Counsel threatened to sue WHAT city for referring to its own tree as a “holiday tree” on the city’s website:

A) San Francisco
B) Detroit
C) Boston
D) Washington DC
E) Miami



ANSWER:

C) Boston: Said a spokesman for Falwell’s Liberty Counsel about the “Holiday Tree” on the Boston Common, “To rename a Christmas tree as a holiday tree is as offensive as renaming a Jewish menorah a candlestick.” For his part, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said he would refer to the tree as a “Christmas tree” during the lighting ceremonies later today. The city’s website, meanwhile, has changed the designation of the 48-foot-tall white spruce in question back to a “Christmas” tree as well.