Sears and Target see the Christmas Light

Sears and Target see the light, the Christmas light: that is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo."

While the secular media continues to spout there is no Christmas controversy, in the real world, we have proved there is. More evidence:

Apparently Sears and Target, two operations that were not saying "Merry Christmas" have turned around and are now Christmas kind of people. That's not good news for the anti-Christmas forces.

Take a look at this cartoon in USA Today, which has been drifting left over the last years. It has a scary looking anchor man, probably me, shouting Christmas warnings. Then the cartoonist takes a shot at conservatives and says the whole thing is "faulty intelligence."

Well, that's the kind of thing we have seen over and over in the media. Today on the CBS News Radio with Christopher Glenn, he reported conservative Christians forced Speaker Hastert to call the Capitol Holiday tree a Christmas tree. Yes, those conservative Christians again. Oh.

Of course liberal Christians, Jews, atheists, all kinds of people are objecting to the diminishment of Christmas.

This is about respect. Banishing the words "Merry Christmas" is simply disrespectful to people who celebrate that federal holiday.

Out on Long Island, where I live, a politician actually interrupted a Catholic priest who was blessing a town Christmas tree. That was blatantly disrespectful. The politician, John Cayman, has since apologized, but really enough's enough. Christian Americans have a right to celebrate Christmas without being demeaned.

Some more examples. In Dodgeville, Wisconsin, the Ridgewood Elementary School has changed the song "Silent Night" to "Cold in the Night" and forced the kids to sing the lyrics, "Cold in the night, no one in sight, winter winds whirl and bite," to the tune of the original "Silent Night." Simply absurd.

Want another one? OK. In Plano, Texas, just north of Dallas, the school told students they couldn't wear red and green because they were Christmas colors. That's flat-out fascism. If I were a student in Plano, I'd be a walking Christmas tree after that order. --Have a little thing on my head.

"Talking Points" understands that you, the viewer, know what's going on here. The good news is we're actually winning. Nearly every time we embarrass the secular forces, they cave. Only a few stores are now banning "Merry Christmas." They are listed on billoreilly.com.

And once again, we're not going for a boycott or any other punitive action. We are defending Christmas. We are exposing people who are disrespecting the federal holiday and the media that covers it up. And we'll continue to do that.

And that's "The Memo."

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

No "Ridiculous" tonight for time reasons but we do want to remind you our billoreilly.com poll which asks would it be smart for CBS to hire Katie Couric as the anchor of the Evening News? Would CBS be smart to hire Katie Couric as the anchor of the Evening News? Yes or no. Vote on billoreilly.com.