This afternoon, President Obama delivered remarks in the White House briefing room on the last-minute passage of the payroll tax cut extension. He celebrated the passage of the compromise, crediting the average Americans who participated in a social media push to get it done, and urged Congress to pass a full year extension when they return. Toward the end, though, the President ran afoul of a rule that GOP candidate Newt Gingrich spoke about earlier this week, that “no federal official at any level is currently allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas.’”

Even the most hardcore partisan can probably enjoy this video put out by Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.). While it presents a core message of “Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah,” it is — at its essence — a bit of a mockery of the onerous rules set forth by politicians. And pretty much everyone can appreciate the flouting of annoyingly tedious rules, especially when its done in the direction of a group that about 90% of Americans disapprove of.

In what was probably the eighth or ninth iteration of the point-and-laugh-at-Fox White House Christmas card story, MSNBC host Ed Schultz managed to top them all, with an assist from a temporary co-host named Rex. Schultz set up the story by introducing the adorable animal shelter beagle, a stand-in for First Dog Bo Obama, whose presence on the White House card, and on a presidential shopping trip, prompted ridiculous criticism from the likes of Sarah Palin and Sen. John McCain.

It seems like, every day, there’s some bit of conservative ridiculousness that emerges to be lampooned by a long procession of cable news shows. Wednesday’s version was the idiotic Fox Radio feature on the White House Christmas card, and as such, I watched about seven versions of point-and-laugh at the Sarah Palin-aided bit of silliness. My favorite take, as is often the case, was Rachel Maddow’s low-key, slow burn take on the former Alaska Governor’s latest defense of Christmas from nothing.

With Christmas under a week away, and Hanukkah starting today, you likely have a refrigerator door full of holiday cards at home right now, featuring friends, family, and awkwardly dressed kids whose names you can’t remember. There might even be a dog or two in there. Perhaps the kids are making snow angels. Here at Mediaite, we get our fair share of cards, too. They’re just not as trite.

Every year, a number of news outlets like Fox News and…uh…ok, just Fox News…spend a lot of time focusing on the War on Christmas, the apparent movement to remove mentions of the holiday from public view. Many in these news stories talk about the dangerous effect eliminating Christmas will have on our nation and its [...]

On Monday afternoon, conservative columnist Rich Galen appeared on CNN host Wolf Blitzer‘s program to discuss, among other things, the “War on Christmas.” And we learned that Galen is not one to beat around the bush Christmas tree.

On Monday night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart responded to Politifact giving him a “Pants on Fire”, by unloading on The History Channel for their historically inaccurate programming. “Apparently the clip we showed was off by around 66 years!” Stewart exclaimed. “For this mistake, I was awarded the fact-checking site Politifact.com’s lowest grade possible “Pants on Fire.”

A Wisconsin based group of Atheists called the Freedom From Religion Foundation have asked a town in Texas to take down a nativity scene that is set up on public property. Last night, a spokesman for that atheist group Dan Barker appeared on Fox Business Network’s Follow the Money, and engaged in a spirited discussion over religion, Christmas and Jesus Christ with host Eric Bolling, which ultimately led to Barker’s abrupt dismissal from the show. It was a “War on Christmas” miracle!

For the past few days, Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart have been going back-and-forth about the War on Christmas and O’Reilly’s pushback against a perceived secularization of the holiday. To quickly recap, after O’Reilly did a whole segment of his program last week on the War on Christmas, Stewart mockingly announced a declaration of war on The Daily Show. O’Reilly responded by joking (?) that Stewart is going to hell, and Stewart shot back by saying he watches Fox News eight hours a day, so he’s already there.

Political fact-checker Politifact has called out Jon Stewart this week for citing an inaccurate segment from the History Channel to refute Fox News’s War on Christmas. The video had noted that “On Dec. 25, 1789, the United States Congress sat in session and continued to stay open on Christmas Day for most of the next 67 years.” Politfact called this claim “flat-out wrong” consulting the US Senate’s historical record, and pegged the late-night comedian’s assertion “pants-on-fire”, which is a harsher judgment than when they last went after him over claims about Fox News’s viewers being misinformed.

On Friday’s Fox and Friends, the three defenders of the Yuletide were lamenting yet another alleged assault on Christmas, when Gretchen Carlson speculated it was only a matter of time before local authorities forced residents to have to take down their own decorations. Co-host Brian Kilmeade was reading a viewer email that said if “you and your children want to see Christmas displayed, put one up in your own yard. Nobody’s stopping you.” “Well at least not yet!” Carlson exclaimed, spurring off-camera chuckles. “Just wait for the town ordinance when you can’t have it!”

Daily Show host Jon Stewart kept cable news’ war on the War on Christmas raging Thursday night when he shot back at Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly‘s assessment that he was destined for an eternity of hellfire and poorly-lit dressing rooms. After calling O’Reilly “one of Santa’s unusually large elves,” Stewart seemed shocked – shocked – that the Fox News personality had so casually condemned him to Hell.

Joe Hall, the Henderson County (Texas) Commissioner, is a self proclaimed country boy serving out his last term as an elected official. He’s also probably the last man who wants to be told by a group from a different state to take down a nativity scene.

On Wednesday, Bill O’Reilly took a look at Daily Show host Jon Stewart‘s excitement over the “War On Christmas,” particularly with Fox News’ coverage of one community’s “tree lighting ceremony.” “If there has been a war,” a clip showed Stewart telling his viewers, “then Christmas is the aggressor nation.”

For the last few years, there’s been a great hullabaloo made over the “War on Christmas” — basically, the belief that companies, networks, and other public entities have phased out “Christmas” and replaced it with “holidays.” Fox News — led in the movement by Bill O’Reilly — has been a leader in the resistance of the movement, but we wanted to see if there were any other networks keeping “Christmas” in the lexicon, possibly in a more understated manner.

Texas Governor and fallen former presidential frontrunner Rick Perry continues to revive his campaign by picking culture war fights with President Obama, releasing an ad that decries, among other things, that ” our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

As American Bridge PAC points out, though, Gov. Perry is a “Happy Holidays” hipster who took the “Christ” out of Christmas way before it was cool.

Yesterday, after the White House issued a memorandum pledging to “promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons” abroad, Gov. Rick Perry hit back, helpfully reminding everyone that “special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money.” Well, did you know that America is wasting its time helping gay people here at home as well? It’s doing so by helping gay people here help other people overseas all at the expense of our nation’s children.

Confused? Well, Perry explains it in a new ad released yesterday in which he informs voters that “there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

Fox & Friends held a debate Monday morning between George Giuliani, the Director of Hofstra’s Graduate School Program in Special Education, and Brad Stine, the conservative stand-up comedian who has become a bit of a fixture on the show. The topic? Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Rankin/Bass stop motion Christmas classic.

Every December on The Factor, with his strong Christmas sense, Bill O’Reilly will kick off his Christmas defense. For the War Upon Christmas comes but once per year, and it fills the Fox hallways with holiday cheer. Today on his program, O’Reilly defended the holiday from secular-progressives who have fought hard to end it. O’Reilly declared, “for the last 15 years” he’s stood up for Christmas and all of its cheers.

Signs that the holiday season is well underway: Discounted Halloween candy collecting dust at your local pharmacy, WHAM’s “Last Christmas” playing in every store (as well as in the apartments of certain bloggers), and, most of all, Bill O’Reilly discussing the War on Christmas.

Counteracting the devastating news that the United States’ Agricultural Department — comprised solely of crotchety old men scheduled to meet with no less than three (3) ghosts — is adding a 15 cent charge to Christmas trees, The Five panelist Eric Bolling shared his abundance of Christmas spirit. And his penchant for sparkles.

If you were looking for the perfect stocking stuffer for the non-Jews and Muslims on your holiday gift list, World Net Daily Books had just the answer with their new book America’s War on Christianity, which was released just in time for the War on Christmas.

World Net Daily was kind enough to send a review copy of the book, which author Brad O’Leary says he wrote because President Barack Obama “declared that America is not a Christian nation.”

The closer we get to the big day, the increasingly inflamed tensions on both sides of the “War on Christmas” seems to grow– and yes, there are two sides. Earlier today on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, fill-in host Cenk Uygur took his last call to tackle a slice of media surrealism entitled “The NBA’s War on Christmas” on FoxNation.com, while failing to note that the piece was not Fox News fare, nor the opinion that of FNC, but of NBA coach Phil Jackson.

Fox News Channel organized what America Live host Megyn Kelly accurately dubbed the “best panel ever,” comprised of Catholic League president Bill Donohue and president of the American Atheists, Dave Silverman. The two men discussed — what else? — the divisiveness and alienation some non-Christians feel this time of year, particularly when faced with a veritable twinkling forest of Christmas trees.