Our Ignorant Dolt of The Week .... Daniel Henninger!

Or: Oh No, Another Pinhead War on Christmas

Boy, if Santa Claus has made up his list, of who's been naughty, and who's been nice, and knowing the penalty attached to the former, if he follows Daniel Henninger's logic, Santa is going to have to strip mine the entire globe to come up with enough coal to stuff in those stockings.

It was a slow week on the Ignorant Dolt front.

We gave some thought to pinning it on our President-Elect, for calling out to Hillary to "C'mon Down", however it isn't official yet, so we may save that for another week.

Henninger is the Deputy Editorial Page Director of the Wall Street Journal, and he penned a column the other day that is a doozy;

Mad Max and the Meltdown: How we went from Christmas to crisis

Notwithstanding the cardboard Santas who seem to have arrived in stores this year near Halloween, the holiday season starts in seven days with Thanksgiving. And so it will come to pass once again that many people will spend four weeks biting on tongues lest they say "Merry Christmas" and perchance, give offense. Christmas, the holiday that dare not speak its name.

Okay, perhaps he's just looking to increase his bookings on the Faux News Network, sitting in the chair next to the Grand Ayatollah of Ignorant Dolts, Bill O'Reilly, so they can swap propaganda on the blazing firefight of their propped-up War on Christmas.

If only it was such pandering ...

Henninger wants to tie in the meltdown of our economy, blaming the non-believers, who by the way, are responsible for the meltdown, as adding a Petraeuseque surge in their War on Christmas.

"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.

One had better explain that."

"What really went missing through the subprime mortgage years were the three Rs: responsibility, restraint and remorse. They are the ballast that stabilizes two better-known Rs from the world of free markets: risk and reward.

Responsibility and restraint are moral sentiments. Remorse is a product of conscience. None of these grow on trees. Each must be learned, taught, passed down. And so we come back to the disappearance of "Merry Christmas."

It has been my view that the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America has been dangerous. That danger flashed red in the fall into subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers, who after all are just people. Northerners and atheists who vilify Southern evangelicals are throwing out nurturers of useful virtue with the bathwater of obnoxious political opinions.

The point for a healthy society of commerce and politics is not that religion saves, but that it keeps most of the players inside the chalk lines. We are erasing the chalk lines.

Feel free: Banish Merry Christmas. Get ready for Mad Max."

WTF!

Jesus, if he stretched it anymore, his arm would have to pop out of its socket.

Did he stumble on this, a clip showing the GAID O'Reilly, talking with fellow pinhead John Gibson, babbling on-and-on, over-the-top idiocracy (way too many electrolytes!) and say, "I can beat that!"

Matt Corley, over on Think Progress sums it up nicely, saying "After cataloging a series of complex economic factors that do relate to the financial crisis, Henninger concludes that what really went wrong is that “the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America” led to “subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers.”.

From dday;

Got that, secular progressives? Deregulation, predatory lending and corporate greed had nothing to do with this. It's you and your atheist friends who are promoting anarchy and the destruction of morals. If there were only crosses on top of Wall Street skyscrapers, the investment bankers and hedge fund managers inside wouldn't have given in to the temptation of greed. Your 401 (k) might have been saved if you practiced Lent this year.

Thanks a lot, heathens. Good luck heating your home with those Bibles you like to burn.

Hilzoy, on Obsidian Wings predicted that Henninger's tirade "has to be in the running for Dumbest Column Ever." and that "it launches itself off into the great empyrean of stupid."

And, this, from Steve Benen;

And yet, the editors at the WSJ continue to push the envelope in new and mind-numbing directions. The Journal published this piece from Daniel Henninger today, which aims to explain "how we went from Christmas to crisis." I've read the whole piece a few times, trying to understand it. I'm at a loss.

Henninger begins by repeating nonsense about Americans, en masse, being afraid to wish others a "Merry Christmas." This, on its face, is absurd. But he goes much further, connecting this non-existent trend in holiday-related rhetoric to the financial crisis, apparently blaming the prior for the latter: "A nation whose people can't say 'Merry Christmas' is a nation capable of ruining its own economy."

Why anyone would attach their name to such transparent foolishness is a mystery to me. Why anyone would publish such inanity is even harder to understand.

Foolishness and Insanity?

Oh yeah, royally, and that pushes Daniel Henninger into the winner's circle, for The Garlic's "Ignorant Dolt of The Week!"


Bonus Great War On Xmas Riffs

Wikipedia: Christmas controversy

Media Matters for America: War on Christmas

Wonkette: A Festivus Miracle: No Fannie/Freddie Foreclosures! (Until January 9)

Liza Featherstone: Merry Christmas, Bill O'Reilly!

Nicole Belle: The O'Reilly Fatuity: The War on Christmas has morphed into the War on Christians

David Kiley: O'Reilly's War on Christmas: Truth Takes a Holiday Again

Eric Boehlert: Battling the homosexuals, liberals and Jews, Bill O'Reilly and friends are making America safe for Christmas

O'Reilly Gears Up Next War; Says Will Battle To Save "Little Christmas"; Calls For New Laws and Mandatory Fines; Doesn't Hesitate To Make Up False Charges To Broadcast His Point