Obama administration calls Christmas trees "Christmas trees"... and taxes them.

It sound amusingly Grinch-y, but let's be fair. The 15-cent charge is to support a program to "enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States."

What makes it very funny to me is that just yesterday, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was lambasted for calling a Christmas tree a "Christmas tree." Linking to my post about that, The Anchoress wisecracks:

See, this is where Governor Walker made his mistake: If you want to call ‘em Christmas Trees, you have to tax them, first. Then you’re allowed.

Now, I said I was going to be fair, so here goes, and this isn't intended to be funny at all. This is intended to focus on the constitutional principles about religion and government. In Wisconsin, we've got a tree in the state capitol, the government's own display. Calling that particular tree a "Christmas tree" adds something to what already is the appearance that the state is endorsing or favoring a holiday that originated with one set of religious groups, the Christians.

In the case of the Department of Agriculture's new Christmas Tree Promotion Board, the government is involving itself with a particular crop and using the name of the crop that is used by those who are in the business of growing that crop. That is, the Department of Agriculture is going about its usual business — which you are welcome to view as too intrusive — and not giving special hands-off treatment to this crop that happens to have an end-use in activities that have some connection to a particular religion.

UPDATE: The Department of Agriculture is delaying the new fee, and a White House spokesman is saying:

"I can tell you unequivocally that the Obama Administration is not taxing Christmas trees. What’s being talked about here is an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign, similar to how the dairy producers have created the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign."

Obama's "Pet Goat."

The Anchoress:

We’ve just spent years listening to ungenerous, miserable people excoriate President Bush for calmly taking 7 minutes, after learning of the attacks of 9/11, to allow his Secret Service to do their thing and to–with a great deal of composure–take his leave from a classroom without managing to scare the children or give an impression of fear that would be put before the nation and the world.

After watching President Obama take six weeks to process the terrible news he was given–pressing forward with golf, vacations, parties and fund-raisers in order to not scare the nation–even if that it meant he seemed a little disengaged from the BP Oil disaster, I never want to hear another sneering, idiotic My Pet Goat joke, again.

IN THE COMMENTS: Fred4Pres said: "My Pet Pelican."

ADDED:

"Every murderous totalitarian government of the 20th century began with some insulated group of faux-intellectuals congratulating each other on how smart they are..."

"... and fantasizing about how, if they could just install a dictatorship-for-a-day, they could right all the wrongs in the world. It is the ultimate fantasy of the narcissist. And we’ve got whole generations of them, in control of our media and our government, all intent on 'remaking America.'"

"The child molester was also a brilliant, generous, talented man — the only person who ever read me a bedtime story."

"I will love him forever, for that, even when I wake up gasping and afraid."

A startling passage — in an essay by Elizabeth Scalia — AKA The Anchoress — that tries to explain — on this Good Friday — how she can be a Catholic after so many revelations about priests who sexually abuse children and the kindly protection they have received within the power structure of the Church.

***

It occurs to me that these priests — and Scalia's family pedophile — are the opposite of Boo Radley. Boo Radley — a character in "To Kill a Mockingbird" — was the reclusive neighbor who, failing to make a conventional show of friendliness, scared the children. But when the children are endangered, he saves them.

***

A Tom Toles cartoon:

Why did Newsweek put the face of Karl Marx on Michelle Obama's apple?

Look!

Here's a closeup of the apple with some iPhoto'd sharpening (no lines redrawn or retouching, just contrast, sharpening, and increasing the "highlights" and "shadows):

For comparison, here's the standard image of Karl Marx:

Now, the Anchoress — first link, above — has become "convinced that it’s simply a matter of the apples’ shading and the lighting." Absurd! It can't be just the lighting and the pattern of the apple peel. A magazine cover is carefully constructed and attention would have to be paid to any accidental imagery. The apple was chosen to be exactly the intended apple and subject to Photoshop tweaking and strategic placement of the lights to attain just the right level of perception and deniability. A good subliminal image must be seen and not seen. It must slide past the average person's conscious defenses and make anyone who insists it is there seem delusional. The Anchoress has retreated.

And so I say: To Newsweek! A toast!

IN THE COMMENTS: Irene says the image that might or might not be there was intentionally put there as "Tea Party bait":

I hear Chris Matthews now. "Marx? They see Marx? Wow, see how crazy they are?? They see socialists EVERYWHERE."