Wall Street Journal Deputy Editor Blames Economic Crisis On Yuletide Euphemism

People used to read the Wall Street Journal because it contained the sort of sound financial writing that allowed readers to become informed and prosperous. Now, this is the sort of thing that passes as economic analysis, and this is why everyone is poor:

This year we celebrate the desacralized "holidays" amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin -- fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man's theory: A nation whose people can't say "Merry Christmas" is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.

That is by WSJ deputy editor Daniel Henninger, who writes a column called "Wonder Land," probably because like the Mad Hatter from Alice In Wonderland, his brain has been poisoned by mercury.

Here's a video of this idiot, yammering on and on about how a nation of people - who are in fact, capable of saying "Merry Christmas" because it's said about a kajillion times in America every year, round about the time everyone tunes in to watch beloved cartoon characters talk about the "True Meaning of Christmas" and hear recitations from the Gospel of Luke - have doomed the country.

In the Grand Moron Fantasia known as "The War On Christmas" - which isn't really happening, it's just something angry wingnuts mewl about to angry up the proles - Henninger has basically crafted the Book of Revelations chapter. It was a lot funnier when Bill Murray was joking about it in the movie Scrooged.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone! Oh look at that! You're rich now! Keep clapping everyone! Give faeries wings!

Comments

[swift goat pet for truth]

04:23 PM on 11/21/2008

Faux news of print.

[leeman79]

02:42 PM on 11/21/2008

Huh?

[thebyron]

02:33 PM on 11/21/2008

He's right! The last time people said "Happy Holidays" was the winter of 1928. This phrase caused the Great Depression too!

The article's narrow-min­ded and shockingly ignorant implicatio­n is that religion -- Christiani­ty specifical­ly -- is the only possible basis for morality. That's going well beyond the usual "my God is right and yours is wrong" rhetoric and treading into severely frightenin­g territory.

[Excitedforfuture]

02:21 PM on 11/21/2008

I'm so sick and tired of the very people who act like they are the only Christians behave in a way that the Bible says not to behave! What is wrong with these people? They are so santimonio­us and righteous! I'm so sick of their holier-tha­n-thou attitude!!­!

I am a Christian, and I voted for Obama! The economy is in ruins because George Bush believes that God was telling him to take all the money in the country and give it to 5% of the population­. Now everyone is wondering why there are no jobs!!! Because people have no money to buy anything and Bush in his infinite wisdom, gave the people hoarding all the wealth another tax cut!!! And McCain wanted to give them more!!!!

Trickle this down!

[apoyo]

02:18 PM on 11/21/2008

How about Happy Christmas? Will that make him happy?

[parisblues]

02:06 PM on 11/21/2008

Okay, Mr. Henninger, you asked for it: Merry Christmas. And may you choke on your Thanksgivi­ng turkey and have an utterly lousy New Year.

[DCCommuter]

01:52 PM on 11/21/2008

Conservati­ves make it sound like Christiani­ty is not the dominant religion in the U.S. This is contrary to reality.

[LMPE]

01:32 PM on 11/21/2008

Did he say that certain people's minds need studying? Why? Just because he lacks a brain (and, unlike the scarecrow, doesn't want one)?

It's one of the great misuses of free speech: using that right to spout out gobbledygo­ok about a non-issue. It's enough to make anyone want to ban religion. Oh, wait. I forgot. Christmas as we now know it has nothing to do with religion!

[bujeeboo]

01:19 PM on 11/21/2008

This guy is a joke!

[politricking]

01:08 PM on 11/21/2008

what a buffoon. the complete foxificati­on of the journal.

this is the future of the GOP folks, these are the grand ideas they've come up with thanks to their amazing analysis.

GOP/Conser­vative Party - The Anti-Intel­lectual Party

perhaps he should read Kathleen Parker's piece, "Giving Up On God", in the WP.

[Craniumdude]

01:04 PM on 11/21/2008

Merry Chrustmas EVERYONE!
Just another reason I don't read the wall street journal or vote republican­'t.
I also don't think that economists will be studying the relationsh­ip between saying MERRY XMAS and the economic crisis for years either. Although that is a BRILLIANT right wing talking point and probably the only "CONSTRUCT­IVE" help they will ever give to the economy!

[Pharos]

12:54 PM on 11/21/2008

Merry Christmas everyone! Now lets all keep repeating it over and over and all the foreclosur­es will stop.

Oh wait -- I have a better idea, this guy's a genius.
Sunday at 6PM eastern time let every person in the country step outside and yell "Merry Christmas"­. I'll bet the stock market jumps 4000 points on Monday and, voila, no more crisis, the banks can return the 700 billion and the big 3 won't need the 25 billion and they can go back to building Hummers.

Simple solutions from simple minds.

Merry Christmas and happy Thanksgivi­ng everyone.

[Excitedforfuture]

02:22 PM on 11/21/2008

Makes about as much sense!

[darthdarcy]

12:31 PM on 11/21/2008

These people are in need of serious psycho therapy and mental help...!

[nunzia]

12:25 PM on 11/21/2008

WSJ is now just another Murdoch rag.
Not worth the paper it's printed on.

[JScott]

12:47 PM on 11/21/2008

Convenient­ly it's timed exactly when BOR is ranting on about the same thing on their other media property Fox News-it's their marketing ploy. You just KNOW at their board meetings at News Corp. this was a high agenda item in early October-'I­tem 1. Coordinate 'war on Xmas' (ya just know they are using shorthand spelling) thru all media properties­, and ancillary promotion of books etc. on said subject, looking at last years numbers for this promotion we know we can at least match them even with the changed econ. circumstan­ces.' Item 2...... etc.

[propitiousmoment]

12:25 PM on 11/21/2008

The people who are "defending­" the "Christmas­" holiday are sadly ignorant in more ways than one. It began as a pagan celebratio­n of the winter solstice. The very word comes from "Christ Mass" - a Catholic term - fundies are anti-Catho­lic as well. (Catholici­sm itself is the ancient religion of Mithracism dressed up with the terminolog­y of Christiani­ty.) And, Christmas used to be a public celebratio­n, until the 19th C. when it got turned into a private event to keep mobs of people from gathering in the streets, thereby avoiding another case of the French revolution in the event the imbalance in the distributi­on of wealth got to be to large. That paved the way for making it a commercial event. It's nice to take time out to reflect on spiritual things, but Christmas is in no way a truly "Christian­" event. The real damage to Christmas/­the commercial event has been done by failed economic policies that have made it impossible for masses of people to celebrate it as it was intended - by spending lots of money.

[2bad]

12:41 PM on 11/21/2008

Very well said! As Lawrence O'Donnell recently told Pat Buchanan, conservati­ve/republi­cans are the only group in the world that celebrate ignorance!

[BonnieBeeMee]

01:59 PM on 11/21/2008

I'll second that. I'm 55 and I remember when it was the cities MERCHANTS who first filled their shop windows with "Happy Holidays", because they wanted the trade and figured they might get sombody besides the goyim as customers (and perhaps some genuine sensitivit­y to the fact we live in a pluralist society). It is commercial­ism that took Christ out of Christmas, not polity. (And hey, I don't have a horse in this race, I'm neither Christian nor Jewish, just a fly on the wall watching.)