Is Christmas making politicians more compassionate?

By BOB FLES

The Swami notes the usual tiresome Christmas complaints being dragged out again this year. He hears complaints about incessant Christmas-all-the-time music on popular radio stations; complaints about laid-off engineers popping up in Santa suits in malls before Thanksgiving; complaints about barrels of cold “holiday” commercialism extinguishing the softly glowing embers of “holy day” significance.

Nonsense.

This seasonal jingle and jangle actually brings out the best in all of us — at least all of us who aren’t already terminally curmudgeonly.

Why, even the Bush administration recently announced that one U.S. citizen being held as a terrorist suspect could speak with a lawyer. Would John Ashcroft have even thought of this generous if unorthodox idea if “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” weren’t playing on the Justice Department sound system every day five times a day?

Would Vince Fumo have decided to abandon his plan to have the complete work force of the Philadelphia Inquirer terminated with extreme prejudice and instead be invited to a free, sumptuous veal dinner with him at the new Taxpayers El Royale Fleecing Inn if the lugubrious strains of “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” hadn’t subconsciously softened the senator’s vengeful heart?

Would John Street, like a smiling, avuncular patriarch at a holiday feast, have insisted that every single relative of every single contributor to every single one of his campaigns have another slice of grandpa’s special Airport Concessions Pie if the mayor hadn’t found himself repeatedly humming, from October to January, “Do you see what I see? Some bucks! Big bucks! Grab ‘em while you can?”

Would the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial court have declared discrimination against gays and lesbians unconstitutional if the justices hadn’t been exposed daily to the new Ellen DeGeneres - Elton John recording of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Mrs. Claus” while courthouse TV screens showed endless replays of Britney Spears and Christine Aguilera open-mouth-kissing pop entertainment’s Holy Mother Herself, Madonna?

Would George W. Bush, thinking he was finally being bombed himself, have leapt onto a plane and fled to Baghdad for Thanksgiving if he hadn’t heard the sound of 6,204,671 “Holiday Specials — ORDER NOW!!” catalogues being dumped by the postman in the foyer of the White House?

Would that same president be considerately sending his biggest contributors holiday greeting cards featuring himself and Laura decked out in flight suits and with red and white candy canes spelling out “BRING ‘EM ON!!” and “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!” if, as a professing Christian, he hadn’t heard and understood advent sermons on the incarnation as a divine act of profound humility?

Would not racial, religious, and ethnic prejudice still be manifested daily in this great country of ours if it were not for seasonal displays in every mall in the U.S.; displays carefully designed to be inoffensively ecumenical, syncretic, interfaith, outerfaith, extrafaith and subfaith; Leave No Faith Behind displays featuring Rudolph kneeling at the manger, nuzzling baby Jesus with his red nose, a menorah proudly gracing his head where a rack of antlers ought to be, while, arm in arm, Mexican, Kenyan, and Korean magi, their camels, their Moslem camel-handlers, Joseph in Amish plain garb, Frosty in a yarmulke, and animated likenesses of Bing Crosby, Marian Anderson, and Fifty Cent all blend their voices in perfect harmony to sing alternating measures of “O Holy Night,” “Chanukah, O Chanukah,” “Kwanzaa, O Kwanzaa,” “Ramadan, O Ramadan,” “O Canada,” and “Rockin’ Robin.”

Q.E.D. Swami’s case closed. And the Swami foresees that things will only get better: on the next 4^th of July, Uncle Sam, the fife-and-drum corps, and the Minutemen with bloody rags wrapped around their heads will be joined on TV by Kris Kringle, a barely showing Virgin Mary, and Herod the Great waving a bloody sword as they advertise together an Independence Day-only, honor-the-dead sale on brand-new Hummers.

(Bob Fles is a long-time Chestnut Hill resident, former chairman of the English department at Chestnut Hill Academy and a non-curmudgeon who embodies the Christmas spirit all year-round.)