Do As I Say...

I apologize for re-visiting something relatively petty so soon after bringing it up the first time, but I couldn't resist because it's just priceless. There aren't many things I read online that make me literally laugh out loud, but tonight we had a winner. A few days ago I posted regarding Bill O'Reilly's war on the war on Christmas, his personal crusade against retailers who referred to Holidays instead of Christmas. Well, apparently he has to put his own employer on his target list. Look what we have here:

The Fox News online store is selling "holiday" ornaments! Three different ones, in fact, including a special O'Reilly Factor holiday ornament. "Put your holiday tree in 'The No Spin Zone' with this silver glass 'O'Reilly Factor' ornament." Holiday tree?!?!? ROFLMAO! You just can't make this stuff up! Who hates Christmas now? They can't blame the libs for this.

It's a good thing that Media Matters got a screen grab while they could. Not surprisingly, once the brainiacs at Fox caught wind of this (the power of the blogosphere strikes again) they made a few alterations to their catalogue, but they still couldn't get it quite right. Fox News now recognizes Christmas for ornaments, but you still have to put them on your holiday tree. It's all very silly, but it was O'Reilly who made such a major gedillah out of this, so he should have to answer for the copy associated with a product that bears his name. The most important thing about all this is that it made my day.

UPDATE: By the grace of God, they finally got it right.

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Just so I can say I wrote about something more serious today, I offer this article about how the Bush administration's penchant for disguising propaganda as news has spread to the military and Iraqi newspapers. They are paying the newspapers to publish stories written by military personnel.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said.

In other words, these articles are "fake but accurate". This coming from the same people who condemned Dan Rather and Mary Mapes for allegedly engaging in that kind of reporting. Next thing you know, Armstrong Williams will be anchoring the 11 o'clock Baghdad news.