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Politics

The President's War on Christmas

Jesse Walker | 12.7.2009 8:06 AM

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Will of The League of Ordinary Gentleman nominates this as the best conspiracy theory ever, and he may well be right. From the Memphis Commerical Appeal:

In the opinion of Arlington [Tennessee] Mayor Russell Wiseman, President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday night on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately timed to block the Christian message of the "Peanuts" television Christmas special.

Wiseman made the statements on his Facebook page, where he declared Obama to be a Muslim.

The report also notes that A Charlie Brown Christmas "has become an endearing program for many because of its emphasis on the 'real meaning of Christmas.'" In Mayor Wiseman's honor, I'll reach into the archives and pull out my reminder that the Peanuts special takes on a different tone when you pair it with its follow-up:

Ten months after A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired, [Linus] returned to America's TV screens in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, a special that undermines its predecessor more thoroughly than any sequel this side of the Alexandria Quartet. Where the first film is a testament to religious faith, the second is all about doubt, as Linus waits patiently for a supernatural being that everyone in the audience knows will never come. While his pals happily celebrate a proudly pagan holiday, Linus haplessly attempts to preach the true meaning of Halloween. Only one friend is briefly convinced, and even she is essentially motivated by lust and greed.

For a moment, despite everything, the Great Pumpkin seems to appear. It turns out to be the neighborhood beagle, himself suffering from the delusion that he's a World War I flying ace. Ho ho ho.

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NEXT: Remembering WW2 Vets on Pearl Harbor Day

Jesse Walker is books editor at Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

PoliticsCultureConspiracy TheoriesTelevisionReligion
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