Murdering Santa Claus
April 16, 2013 - by
For years Jesse Helms wrote every speech he made, typing each on an old reporter’s typewriter, then one year when he was unusually harried he decided it was time to hire a speechwriter – so we hired ‘John.’
John was an unusually gifted writer but for all his virtues he had a peculiar view of politics (and the world in general). John saw politics as one tiny pinnacle of pure white light populated with saints, surrounded by a pitch-black engulfing darkness filled with goblins and liberals who had to be exterminated and, since the saints were badly outnumbered, the way John saw it there was no room for the luxury mercy.
Of course the fearfulness of his vision meant he was angry a great part of the time and naturally, over time, his anger turned him mean.
For six months John diligently labored writing passionate and articulate speeches for Jesse then one day in December, as we walked to my car to go to lunch, John handed Jesse a speech and launched into a tirade about Christmas – he said Christmas was a greed-ridden desecration of the story of the Christ child, an abomination reeking of materialism, then tore into Santa Claus, saying Santa Claus was a hobgoblin invented by greedy shopkeepers to con little children – then he stepped in front of Jesse, turned to face him, and said, Somebody needs to stand up and tell those children the truth about Santa Claus – and pointed to that speech.
Not with the white-hot passion (born of fear or betrayal or meanness) of a common murderer but with the cold-calculated passion of a Grand Inquisitor ticking off the names of heretics John had proposed the murder of St. Nicholas.
Jesse stopped dead in his tracks, rocked back on his heels, looked back at John, and grinned, Well, if you don’t mind, I believe I’d as soon pass on running for the Senate by telling children there’s no Santa Claus.
Back in those days you could usually find a fellow like John in almost every town of any size but given the limits of geography and communications in those days it was nearly impossible for John to find (or share fellowship with) his natural political soul mates. He was sadly isolated and fought his political battles alone.
John passed on a decade ago but today his lineal descendents (not in blood but in politics) are happier because they’re no longer alone – modern day Johns build websites then with the click of a button other ‘Johns’ can find them and they form a tribe as bellicose as Huns.
The other day, without meaning to, a soft-spoken lady from Charlotte who’s one of the four Republican leaders in the House – Representative Ruth Samuelson – sent one of those Hun-tribes into a white-hot fury.
Back to 2007 a previous state legislature passed a bill to encourage companies to produce ‘renewable energy’ – like solar power – in North Carolina; hardly a word has been said about the bill for six years, until last week when State Representative Mike Hager stood up in a House Committee and announced that utility companies using solar power was adding millions of dollars to electric bills and he was going to put a stop to it by repealing that six-year-old bill.
Those two words – renewable energy – reverberated across the Internet with the power of a magnet and hit a tribe of Johns right squarely between the eyes. Because the one person they knew who favored renewable energy was Barack Obama. And that’s all they needed to know. No sooner had Mike Hager sounded the war tocsin than a full-throated battle cry filled the air and charges flew about the evil of government subsidies and the worse evil of government interfering with the free market – which in a way didn’t add up because utility companies are monopolies and there is no free market for selling electricity.
Then just when it looked like Representative Hager’s bill was sure to sail through that committee Ruth Samuelson stood up and politely said that it might be a good idea for legislators to stop and do a little research before voting.
About an hour after that one Hun-like tribe put a picture of Samuelson and a picture of another Republican legislator on its website alongside a picture of Obama then added a headline over the pictures roaring: They voted with Obama!
The way that tribe saw it Ruth Samuelson had gone over to the Dark Side or, worse, become a liberal – which didn’t add up either because how on earth could an Obama-liberal be one of the four Republican Leaders in the State House?
So I looked up that 2007 bill and an odd fact popped up right away: George Bush was President when that bill passed. Then a second fact leaped off the page: The most rock-ribbed conservative in the legislature, Phil Berger, had voted for that bill. As had Thom Tillis, Tom Apodaca, Skip Stam, Robert Pittenger and just about every other Republican in the General Assembly.
Whether that Hun-like tribe’s attack on Ruth Samuelson was cold-blooded calculation or hot-blooded rage there’s no getting around one more fact: It was an act of pure meanness – like when John told Jesse, You ought to tell little children there is no Santa Claus.
Murdering Santa Claus
April 16, 2013/
For years Jesse Helms wrote every speech he made, typing each on an old reporter’s typewriter, then one year when he was unusually harried he decided it was time to hire a speechwriter – so we hired ‘John.’
John was an unusually gifted writer but for all his virtues he had a peculiar view of politics (and the world in general). John saw politics as one tiny pinnacle of pure white light populated with saints, surrounded by a pitch-black engulfing darkness filled with goblins and liberals who had to be exterminated and, since the saints were badly outnumbered, the way John saw it there was no room for the luxury mercy.
Of course the fearfulness of his vision meant he was angry a great part of the time and naturally, over time, his anger turned him mean.
For six months John diligently labored writing passionate and articulate speeches for Jesse then one day in December, as we walked to my car to go to lunch, John handed Jesse a speech and launched into a tirade about Christmas – he said Christmas was a greed-ridden desecration of the story of the Christ child, an abomination reeking of materialism, then tore into Santa Claus, saying Santa Claus was a hobgoblin invented by greedy shopkeepers to con little children – then he stepped in front of Jesse, turned to face him, and said, Somebody needs to stand up and tell those children the truth about Santa Claus – and pointed to that speech.
Not with the white-hot passion (born of fear or betrayal or meanness) of a common murderer but with the cold-calculated passion of a Grand Inquisitor ticking off the names of heretics John had proposed the murder of St. Nicholas.
Jesse stopped dead in his tracks, rocked back on his heels, looked back at John, and grinned, Well, if you don’t mind, I believe I’d as soon pass on running for the Senate by telling children there’s no Santa Claus.
Back in those days you could usually find a fellow like John in almost every town of any size but given the limits of geography and communications in those days it was nearly impossible for John to find (or share fellowship with) his natural political soul mates. He was sadly isolated and fought his political battles alone.
John passed on a decade ago but today his lineal descendents (not in blood but in politics) are happier because they’re no longer alone – modern day Johns build websites then with the click of a button other ‘Johns’ can find them and they form a tribe as bellicose as Huns.
The other day, without meaning to, a soft-spoken lady from Charlotte who’s one of the four Republican leaders in the House – Representative Ruth Samuelson – sent one of those Hun-tribes into a white-hot fury.
Back to 2007 a previous state legislature passed a bill to encourage companies to produce ‘renewable energy’ – like solar power – in North Carolina; hardly a word has been said about the bill for six years, until last week when State Representative Mike Hager stood up in a House Committee and announced that utility companies using solar power was adding millions of dollars to electric bills and he was going to put a stop to it by repealing that six-year-old bill.
Those two words – renewable energy – reverberated across the Internet with the power of a magnet and hit a tribe of Johns right squarely between the eyes. Because the one person they knew who favored renewable energy was Barack Obama. And that’s all they needed to know. No sooner had Mike Hager sounded the war tocsin than a full-throated battle cry filled the air and charges flew about the evil of government subsidies and the worse evil of government interfering with the free market – which in a way didn’t add up because utility companies are monopolies and there is no free market for selling electricity.
Then just when it looked like Representative Hager’s bill was sure to sail through that committee Ruth Samuelson stood up and politely said that it might be a good idea for legislators to stop and do a little research before voting.
About an hour after that one Hun-like tribe put a picture of Samuelson and a picture of another Republican legislator on its website alongside a picture of Obama then added a headline over the pictures roaring: They voted with Obama!
The way that tribe saw it Ruth Samuelson had gone over to the Dark Side or, worse, become a liberal – which didn’t add up either because how on earth could an Obama-liberal be one of the four Republican Leaders in the State House?
So I looked up that 2007 bill and an odd fact popped up right away: George Bush was President when that bill passed. Then a second fact leaped off the page: The most rock-ribbed conservative in the legislature, Phil Berger, had voted for that bill. As had Thom Tillis, Tom Apodaca, Skip Stam, Robert Pittenger and just about every other Republican in the General Assembly.
Whether that Hun-like tribe’s attack on Ruth Samuelson was cold-blooded calculation or hot-blooded rage there’s no getting around one more fact: It was an act of pure meanness – like when John told Jesse, You ought to tell little children there is no Santa Claus.