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Opening Arguments

Shut up, Virginia

Aasanta Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, as surely as blah, blah, blah. It was in the New York Sun in 1897 and is probably the most famous editorial ever blah, blah, blah. My boss made me run that on the editorial page every year. He left, so I quit running it. Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Leo, ho-ho-ho. I thought I had gotten rid of the silly thing for good, but I got this e-mail just the other day:

DEAR LEO: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says if it's in Opening Arguments, it must be true. So tell me. Is there a Santa Claus? VIRGINIA.

I guess I have to answer her. We are supposed to be interactive these days.

Dear Virginia: I am very busy right now. You think I have nothing better to do than answer questions from silly little girls? I have passed your concerns along to a few other people in hopes that they might be able to address your concerns. Following are some of the responses I received.

GEORGE BUSH: Yes, it is true that I originally believed there is a Santa Claus. But if you look at the record, you will see that EVERYBODY believed it, including France and members of the Clinton administration.

TEDDY KENNEDY: It has become obvious that no one over the age of 8 continues to believe there is a Santa Claus. George Bush lied, children cried.

NANCY PELOSI: Hearings will begin on that issue shortly after the first of the year. We will focus specifically on the question of what ethical considerations might have been violated in connection with any promises that might have been tendered or exacted by the previous leadership in regards to all these "gifts." Rest assured that Christmas will now become a transparent holiday that the American people can once again have faith in.

AL GORE: Certainly he exists, but unless we change our ways, he is doomed. The North Pole IS MELTING as we speak!!!

GOV. MITCH DANIELS: It seems a disservice to taxpayers to try to get all those toys delivered on one night by one man. My administration is now in talks with Toys 'R Us, and we should be able to get $1 billion up front for all-day kindergarten and a plan to save horse racing in Indiana.

MAYOR GRAHAM RICHARD: The problem isn't Santa Claus, the problem is that we just haven't made Fort Wayne attractive enough for him to stop here. We will take care of that in the next phase of our downtown redevelopment plan, which will require us to take over the top floors of all buildings through eminent domain for the installation of bigger chimneys.

THE INDIANA POLICY REVIEW: A study we commissioned by economist Sam Staley indicates that whatever illusion of "joy" and "good will" is created by this one day of gift-giving quickly dissipates before the first of the year. Anyone with a minimal understanding of economics will realize that a cost-benefit analysis reveals Santa's mission to be a fool's errand.

NEWS-SENTINEL EDITORIAL PAGE: Santa Claus is merely encouraging dependency among a group of people who should learn self-sufficiency. When they get gifts for free on one day, merely by asking for them, they tend to expect the same treatment from then on, forgetting that they must only expect the benefits of their own hard work.

JOURNAL-GAZETTE EDITORIAL PAGE: "Santa Claus" is a polite fiction invented by conservative reactionaries who want us to believe that private charities can take the place of a compassionate government that best understands the needs of a diverse population and can redirect its resources accordingly.

INDIANAPOLIS STAR EDITORIAL PAGE: The evidence arguing against the existence of Santa Claus is persuasive, and mounting, but the heartfelt belief of generations of children cannot lightly be dismissed. Much further study is required.

I also received many responses from local bloggers. A lot of it was gibberish that I couldn't quite make out, but a few comments stood out. Mitch Harper at Fort Wayne Observed pointed out that he was one of the first people in this area to support Santa Claus, pushing through a bill when he was a member of the General Assembly that made the jolly old man exempt from the gift tax. Angry White Boy at Fort Wayne News wonders why Santa, always seeking to have young people sitting on his lap, isn't on a registry somewhere yet. Robert at Left of Centrist observes that Santa is surely a Democrat who secretly sat in at drums for the Beatles between Pete Best and Ringo Starr. Bob G. notes that, if Santa comes to southeast Fort Wayne, he might need more than a .38 special to protect his milk and cookies. I haven't heard yet from Nancy Nall, but I understand that she has spent five minutes on Google researching everything there is to know about Santa and is prepared to smack down anybody who presumes to write too superficially about him.

As you can plainly see, Virginia, the world has changed. It is no longer the case that one overworked editorial writer will create something that tries to take one specific question from an 8-year-old girl in one city and make it touch a universal chord within all of us. There is no common ground anymore, Virginia. We are all just shouting into the well, hoping the echo makes us feel good. Go listen to your iPod, Virginia, or put the video of your teddy bear on YouTube. Some of us have serious personal issues we need to get out there in hopes that we get noticed.

P.S. I did send your query to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit. He sent back 367 links. I don't have time to check them out, but you might find one or two of them of interest. Tell Your dad to go back to his newspaper and stop being a troublemaker.

Comments

Steve Towsley
Mon, 12/25/2006 - 5:11pm

No doubt you also received e-mail from some religious entity or other chiding you that not only does Santa Claus not exist, but that it is secular ignorance to permit kids of any age to enjoy the traditional fantasy of North Pole, sleigh & reindeer, milk & cookies, and Santa's presents under the tree.

That, of course, puts these folks in oddly close proximity to those alarmists whom they oppose who ALSO want to banish the traditional Merry Christmas, only with a different rationale.

I think we're better off with Virginia's assurances that all is well.

tim zank
Tue, 12/26/2006 - 5:53am

Priceless Leo, simply priceless!

Andrew Kaduk
Tue, 12/26/2006 - 7:19am

I laughed so hard when I read this, I actually woke up.

Craig
Tue, 12/26/2006 - 9:39am

Linking to a racist plagiarist I see. That Pulitzer is just a vague and distant memory isn't it?

Steve Towsley
Tue, 12/26/2006 - 3:53pm

Leo wrote:
>Nancy Nall...has spent five minutes on Google
>researching everything there is to know about
>Santa and is prepared to smack down anybody >who presumes to write too superficially
>about him.

Re the poster in question: Her column dropped from the local papers for cause (i.e., lack of popularity by all accounts), she reportedly has started up a web site whose main entertainment, it seems, is tilting at the she-male dragon herself.

Superficiality appears to be the staple grist of her own mill, and ill-considered criticism of others the petard upon which she is ironically and repeatedly hoist.

If there were any temptation on our part to give her the benefit of the doubt under the Founders' Article I, she saved us the bother by casting personal insults at another poster, Jon Olinger, by name. Regarding "Grace," I conclude the fat lady has sung. Too, too often.

AWB
Wed, 12/27/2006 - 6:01am

Nicely done! I only wish I had read this sooner, it made my day. Craig, I have it on good word Santa left you reindeer turds in your stocking. ;)

Craig
Wed, 12/27/2006 - 10:39am

Hey AWB (aka Daniel Turkette), why do you have my personal email address on your front page? That's the address I use to correspond with my family, but for some reason you've published it on your blog.

I really don't appreciate that. I know those addresses are publicly availible, but I don't feel like getting a bunch of spam there just because you like to intimidate me.

It's good to see that the News Sentinel likes to encourage this type of thing by linking to bloggers like you. It says a great deal about the paper and it's policies.

alex
Wed, 12/27/2006 - 11:28am

Steve, I'm not sure by whose account you think Nancy's column disappeared, but here's the true story. Nancy got a Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. It's a pretty prestigious honor. It also means taking a sabbatical of a year from your employment with no guarantee you'll get the same job when you come back. It also meant her husband, who was employed at the paper, had to choose between keeping his job there or following her to the University of Michigan. He didn't get the option of a sabbatical.

Rich Reynolds has pretended more than a few times that her disappearance from the paper was due to performance issues but this is a crock and anyone who works there knows this. Leo, care to set the record straight, or have I done it sufficiently?

Leo Morris
Wed, 12/27/2006 - 11:59am

To be complete, the record should probably say that, 1) Nancy didn't have to leave here but, 2)She wasn't very happy here when she did leave. Other than saying that a lot of us enjoyed her work here and were sorry to see it end, I should let Nancy do whatever other clarifying she might choose do do.

Steve Towsley
Wed, 12/27/2006 - 3:48pm

Okay, you may have altered the first half of the first sentence of my first paragraph. The rest stands, since it is not dependent upon those words.

As I am not one of those who was sorry to see her column end, I think I've covered the matter wall to wall. I don't think any further "clarifying" is going to make her politics any more clear, or palatable. If she was unhappy with her situation, then, I say happily, she should not consider returning to it -- in my view. A win-win situation.

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