Apparently, Nina Totenburg was so embarrassed about even saying the word Christmas that she had to promptly apologize for saying the word before she even said it:
“I was at – forgive the expression – a Christmas party,” NPR reporter Nina Totenberg interjected on Inside Washington in the weekend’s oddest cautionary separation from a common description for a common event, seemingly embarrassed to invoke any religious terminology for Christmas. She didn’t say what she’d prefer for parties this time of the year to be named. “Winter solstice party”? Just plain old “holiday party”? Or a “seasonal gathering”?
Ridiculous.
Here’s the transcript:
I want to say one thing about the budget that didn’t get passed, the omnibus bill. You know, we talk a lot about – we just passed this huge tax cut in part because business said, you know, we have to plan, we have to know what kind of tax cuts we have. Well, these agencies, including the Defense Department, don’t know how much money they’ve got and for what. And I was at – forgive the expression – a Christmas party at the Department of Justice and people actually were really worried about this. These are law enforcement people don’t know exactly what kind of money they can spend for what.
Ed Morrissey pointed out that there was just as ridiculous gaffe behind the more obvious one that deserves some attention, too:
Really? They don’t know what laws to enforce based on continuing resolutions? The CRs provide the ultimate in continuity; by locking in the previous year’s budget plan, they maintain the status quo. In government, it doesn’t get more consistent than a CR.
And for a reporter, Totenberg has trouble getting her facts straight. Congress didn’t pass a tax cut. They passed a bill that maintains the current tax rates in the same status they’ve been for seven years. In fact, taxes went up because of the renewed estate tax; it just didn’t go up as much as Democrats wanted. It’s only a tax cut if government feels that they were owed that tax increase and the money it would have taken out of the pockets of citizens above what they have already taken over the last decade.
The DoD and DoJ will get ample notice about the remainder of this year’s budgets when the next session of Congress sits down to develop the budget that Democrats deliberately avoided producing. That won’t likely include more money for more regulatory efforts at the DoJ, and will almost certainly mean less money for some of the regulatory efforts they’re already engaged in performing. For that, Totenberg and the DoJ can thank the outgoing Democratic majority that punted on the budget all year long despite having large majorities in the House and Senate and one of their own in the White House.
This is the woman that NPR decided to keep on, after wishing Jesse Helms and his family catch HIV, but they had to fire Juan Williams. Really? Really? She needs to pay more attention to the facts than worrying about whether or not she might offend someone by admitting that there’s this holiday that we call Christmas.
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