“He’s making a list, checking it twice, going to find out who’s naughty or nice …” ADVERTISING “He’s making a list, checking it twice, going to find out who’s naughty or nice …” Santa Claus does not, of course, need
“He’s making a list, checking it twice, going to find out who’s naughty or nice …”
Santa Claus does not, of course, need any help in deciding among the deserving and undeserving this holiday season. But with Christmas only days away and the North Pole toy shop backed up with orders, here are, in the spirit of the season, a few suggestions to help St. Nick complete his lists so he and his reindeer can get on their way, and on time.
Naughty: Elizabeth Lauten, the Republican congressional communications director who dissed Sasha and Malia Obama for their clothes and facial expressions during the president’s pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey.
Nice: The nation’s beautiful first daughters, who handle their unsought duties with grace, dignity and a maturity found lacking in many twice their ages.
Naughty: The 63.6 percent of Americans in our democracy who didn’t vote in 2014.
Nice: The 36.4 percent who chose to exercise that precious and fundamental right.
Naughty (worse than that): Police officers in Ferguson, Cleveland and Staten Island whose actions made sure a Missouri teenager, a 12-year-old Ohio boy with an air pistol and a New York father won’t be home — or anywhere else on this earth — on Christmas Day.
Nice: My multiracial neighbors and hundreds like them who lined Washington’s 16th Street NW from the White House to Silver Spring, Md., in a candlelight vigil for justice for all people, including the victims who were united — as were the cops— by the color of their skin.
Naughty: The Ferguson protesters who resorted to vandalism and looting.
Nice: The Ferguson demonstrators who exercised their First Amendment rights within the law.
Naughty: The Beta Sigma chapter of the Delta Gamma sorority at the University of Maryland, which posted a photo featuring a sorority member posing with an alcohol-bottle and cupcake-laden 21st-birthday cake that, according to local WTTG-TV (Channel 5), included the “N” word and “a sexual act that is performed on an African-American man.” Ouch. Naughty is not the word for the behavior of these flowers of America’s future.
Nice: The Howard University students who staged a powerful protest, which included their hands outstretched in a “Don’t Shoot” pose.
Naughty: The black offenders who make crime a serious problem in African American communities.
Nice: The African American cops, prosecutors, judges and black-dominated juries that are arresting, trying, convicting and sending to jail these offenders, hence putting a lie to the myth that “black-on-black” crime is tolerated or excused. Just as it is nonsense to bewail “white-on-white” crime because most white folks killed are done in by other white folks. Santa ought to reward the black, white, brown, etc., people, including police officers, who risk their lives to protect us and who refuse to buy into the myth.
Naughty: Congressional Republicans, instigated by Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, who are trampling all over the D.C. Home Rule Act to block the city from implementing a democratically passed referendum to legalize marijuana. They deserve coal in their stockings.
Nice: The citizens who recognize when principle is at stake and are willing to step forward and stand up to the bullies on Capitol Hill. Those fine Americans deserve sugar plums or some such thing dancing above their heads.
If that weren’t enough, Santa’s got a little more to add on his lists.
Naughty: Those unreconstructed demagogues on the right who slander President Obama as a radical leftist out to destroy capitalism, even though he saved the auto industry, rescued Wall Street and has taken the lead in undermining Vladimir Putin and the Russian economy. Those Obama enemies deserve nothing if for no other reason than their ingratitude.
Naughty: Sony Pictures Entertainment executives who showed their true colors when it comes to race, and the hackers who are waging a cyberattack against the company. This is more of a thought than recognition of the deserving: Put the Sony Pictures execs and the hackers together in a cage and let them have at each other.
Nice: Objective and fearless journalists who bring truth and light to all who would draw near and listen or — as the case may be — read. Shower them fulsomely with your gifts, dear Santa.
Naughty: That Mr. Hyde, allegedly free of conscience, filled with darker impulses, depraved and a defiler of drugged women, known in some quarters as Bill Cosby.
Nice: The sociable, respectable and morally decent Dr. Jekyll, a.k.a. Bill Cosby, said by Camille, his wife of 50 years, to be “a kind man, a generous man, a funny man and a wonderful husband, father and friend.”
(Sorry, but your call, big fella.)
Merry Christmas, happy holidays and to all a good night.
King is a former deputy editorial page editor of The Washington Post.
