Nashville hardly noticed when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced plans for “blocking indecent and Western music from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Patrons of the Grand Ole Opry kept right on with their business of drinking beer, chewing tobacco and lamenting the sight of another man’s pickup in their cousin’s driveway. But they — like so many Fox News anchors — were ineluctably haunted by the prospect of an increasingly secularized (and homogenized) shopping season. In a scene played out in Mangers all across our fair land, Nashville’s Metro Council fervently overturned Mayor Bill Purcell’s politically correct arboreal designation, HOLIDAY DISPLAY, and officially tagged the city’s illuminated evergreen a CHRISTMAS TREE. Local pastor Steve Flanagin expounded: “I think it’s crazy how Christmas has come under such assault — why be afraid to say Merry Christmas?”

Well, Steve, let me tell you. Continental Airlines passengers heading to Vail, Colorado for their WINTER VACATION had to sit on the tarmac for over an hour while authorities removed pastor Joel Osteen’s wife after a scuffle with a flight attendant. Osteen heads the nation’s largest church (Houston’s Lakewood) and is counting his blessings that he is not living 200 miles to the northwest, ensconced as the youth minister at the Victory Baptist Church in Burnet. That’s where preacher’s spouse Amanda White was arrested for soliciting a minor by sending bras, condoms and lubricant to a 15-year-old boy. Gifts notwithstanding, this time of year is particularly painful for the inhabitants of St. Michael, Alaska who were, to a man, molested by “Deacon Joe” Lundowski as boys. One victim recalled how he was asked to stay after catechism class to wash some dishes: “He sneaked up on me. He pulled my pants down and penetrated me… I never finished the dishes.” What with predatory clergy, the desire to curtail rights of women and same-sex partners, and the effort to inarch group prayer and Intelligent Design onto public school curricula, it is the perhaps polity that is being assaulted by Christmas. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones, for one, concurs. While ruling against the “breathtaking inanity” of the Dover, PA school board, Jones — an avowed Republican churchgoer — cited “overwhelming evidence” that ID “is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of Creationism, and not a scientific theory.”

Was it a case of Divine Intervention or merely incredibly bad timing? Either way President Bush failed to secure permanent status for the expiring Patriot Act as Senators on both sides of the aisle were peppered with revelations that the NSA, FBI and Department of Defense were illegally spying on American citizens. When confronted by reporters, Mr. Bush indignantly griped, “It was a shameful act to disclose this important program in a time of war.” Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff was more succinct. Stroking his hoary mustache, he grinned, “Warrants; we don’t need no stinkin’ warrants.”

Two massive communications mergers (AT&T / SBC and Verizon / MCI) lent a creepy Big Brotherliness to the President’s untimely admission that he personally authorized the NSA to monitor all telephone and Internet traffic coursing through U.S. routers and switching stations — a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) howled, “Where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and phones of American citizens without court oversight?” U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Magistrates, offered no rejoinder; he simply resigned in protest.

Student protesters staging a sit-in at the University of California, Santa Cruz were spied on (as were hundreds of others, including the Quakers) by military operatives because they were deemed a national security “threat.” Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA) was “shocked” and “appalled” at the discovery and called the of Pentagon’s domestic spy ring “a waste of taxpayer money.” Even so, it’s certainly nothing new. During Vietnam, more than 100 military agents testified that they were ordered to spy on anti-war demonstrators and civil rights leaders. Reflexively, Congress passed a law to limit such activity, but Christopher Pyle (no relation), a central figure in the 1970’s proceedings, now warns, “Military intelligence is back conducting investigations… on civilian political activity.”

The FBI’s counterterrorism unit has been busy, too. They have tirelessly protected our tranquility by staking out a Vegan Community Project, a Catholic Workers group, and a PETA rally denouncing the use of llama fur. To be fair, the feds were also monitoring radiation levels around 120 mosques and halal grocery stores. At least they were doing something useful. Taken as a whole, the administration’s mélange of lies, cover-ups and abuses of power is positively Nixonian. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) railed, “[George] is the president, not a king.” Unencumbered by such vitriol, Mr. Bush shrugged his shoulders, raised a hirsute eyebrow and blithely characterized his nefarious activities as “part of my job to protect” America. Yet if he is so consumed with our wellbeing, why did he release Saddam’s leading biological warfare experts Rihab Taha and Huda Ammash, otherwise known as Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax? Why did he relax commercial airline restrictions on scissors and hand tools? Why did he jerk off all over semi-nude pictures of Osama Bin Laden’s niece published in GQ Magazine?

It’s hard to believe newspaper editors have been summoned to the Oval Office and pressured to quash stories. No, we must be experiencing a collective early seventies flashback; how else can you explain the flair-bottomed jeans? Thirty years later we are still mired in an “unwinnable” war, routinely lied to by a despotic president, and crippled by high oil prices. California is governed by a washed up actor, the Rolling Stones are touring, and Kojak is on the tube. And for two and a half months a professional football team threatened to replicate the 1972 Miami Dolphins’ perfect season. But then the 13-0 Indianapolis (nee Baltimore) Colts fell to the talented if ineptly coached San Diego Chargers. 18-year old James Dungy, son of Indy head coach Tony Dungy, was so broken up over the outcome that he committed suicide in his Florida apartment. During the funeral, Tony’s four surviving offspring vowed not to watch any of the team’s remaining games.