The War on 'War on'

I had been posting over at Donklephant.com, but I'm going to have to cut it down to a minimum because my comments keep getting "disappeared," and there's not much sense in posting something if you can't defend it or return fire on trolls.

One of the comments that went invisible dealt with this complaint about the phrase "War on Christmas," which was filed under the entry "partisan hacks."

I can not believe that these guys are actually calling this a WAR on Christmas. To do so is to completely demean what war really is, and is insulting to our men and women abroad who are fighting and dying in our country’s service.

Shame on you John Gibson. There are many other ways you could have marketed this, but you decided to go with the sexy word that would sell the most books.

Well, there's a lot of shame to go around, and a lot of partisan hackery, but it tends to not get noticed when it's out of your own hack stable. The "War on Christmas" campaign may be a new one. But the "war on ..." formula isn't, and it's treated as almost a civil right by the Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers.

F'rinstance:

Bush’s War on the Press
by Eric Alterman in the Nation

Bush’s War On Cops
in Washington Monthly

Bush’s “War on Women”
from Planned Parenthood

George Bush’s war on nature
in Salon

Bush’s War on Science
courtesy of Howard Dean

Bush’s War on Our Civil Liberties
at Pacific Views

Bush’s war on information
courtesy of “a liberal alternative to the Drudge report.”

Bush’s War on Children
courtesy of Alternet

Bush’s War on Veterans
in Democratic Underground

and last but not least,

Bush’s war on America