Randi Rhodes: Playing the Christ Card

Sounds like someone’s been nipping at the eggnog. The latest line from Republicans is that trying to get things done before Christmas is somehow disrespecting Christmas. Hello! If people didn’t get things done before Christmas, there would be no Christmas! Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said that working in the weeks leading up to Christmas is “disrespecting one of the two holiest holidays for Christians.” I assume Kyl meant Christmas and Easter. Or is there another bigger holiday where Christians like Jon Kyl celebrate hypocrisy? Tea Party idol Jim DeMint (R-SC) said “It’s sacrilegious. What’s going on here is just wrong. This is the most sacred holiday for Christians.” Jim spoke on December 15. I know there’s a “Christmas season,” but I didn’t think we were supposed to take the entire season off. Here’s a classic from DeMint: “We shouldn’t be jamming a major arms control treaty up against Christmas; it’s sacrilegious and disrespectful.” Yeah, an arms control treaty really conflicts with all that “Prince of Peace” stuff.

I have news for Senators Kyl and DeMint—everybody works up until Christmas. Even the shepherds at the first Christmas were “tending their flocks by night.” So not only were they working, these poor guys pulled a graveyard shift on Christmas. And Jesus was a carpenter. I doubt very much if he routinely took the last three weeks of the year off to celebrate his birthday.

The Christmas comments from Kyl and DeMint weren’t even the most hypocritical things said by Republicans yesterday. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and John Thune (R-SD) are working through Christmas on the hypocrisy front. They were crowing about how they were going to vote against the omnibus spending bill because it was loaded with earmarks. They were quite certain of that, since they did much of the loading themselves. Cornyn has some 53 pork projects in this bill, worth $15.7 million. Thune added 53 earmarks costing $38.5 million.That’s like the doctor that wrote all those prescriptions for Michael Jackson criticizing him for abusing prescription drugs. If this bill was full of pork, Cornyn and Thune helped design the recipe. And the part they put in was “add $50 million worth of pork and place in a preheated oven.” But Cornyn came up with the capper: “We will reject any earmarks requested by us or by anyone else.” That’s the attitude! “I’m not going to let me get away with this reckless spending!”

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasts those using Christmas as an excuse not to work…