Kudos to Fox News for its vigilance in monitoring the War on Christmas. Kudos, too, to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show for monitoring the monitors.
To its credit, Fox has kept a close eye on the small skirmishes which make up the War on Christmas. Here a Christmas display is removed. There, a drugstore chain returns the word Christmas to its stores. What do these little things mean?
And that's the point. Sometimes with wars, it's hard to tell when a conflict is won or lost. See Iraq and Afghanistan for examples. The War on Christmas, as with any other war, needs a set of metrics to guide policymakers on the severity of the conflict, and to let those on the sidelines know when it's all over, or just slightly over, or if the cause is lost.
Military strategy and logistics are complex subjects. Hundreds of years after wars have ended, authors still find ways to re-fight the conflicts, to evaluate strategies and micro-analyze tactics. But for this war, not so much. If someone with more training than I wishes to lend his or her knowledge and skill to the task of establishing metrics for the War on Christmas, I wish them well. Here is some work upon which they can build.
The War on Christmas will be determined successful when:
- Year-round Christmas stores close up.
We will determine the success of the War on Christmas by these benchmark metrics. If 25 percent of the above are achieved, then Christmas will be deemed to be threatened. If 50 percent are achieved, Christmas will be deemed to be in jeopardy. If all of these things occur, then the War on Christmas will be successful and the Defenders of Christmas will have failed, epically. We trust Fox will let us know how it turns out.