De-Jacobying Jacoby

And so it begins again -- the annual effort to convince people that there's a conspiracy to neuter Christmas, to insist in the name of "righteousness" and "the Baby Jesus" that a greeting of "Happy Holidays" that goes unnoticed by something like 90 percent of Americans is evidence of an anti-religious plot. We all know the drill by now. Talk Radio blowhards urge boycotts of stores where clerks wish you a "happy holiday." Administrators are threatened if the School concert doesn't include singing "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains."

Sometimes the effort goes to laughable extremes. Fox News itself, one of the primary drivers of the current push to convince America that Christmas is under attack, is selling "Holiday" ornaments on its own website. I wonder if Fox is fueled by anti-Christian bigotry or sheer misanthropic bile. Maybe both!

But mostly, I just wish that Jeff Jacoby had taken the buyout from the Globe instead of Tom Oliphant. The Globe Op/Ed page just got a little more unbearable.