When it comes to Christmas, Gov. Deval Patrick is a “happy holidays” kind of guy.
I mean, if the bar exam had had a political correctness section on it, it wouldn’t have taken Deval three tries to pass it.
As you know, it’s important never, ever to mention the name of a Christian holiday, because you might offend somebody.
If anybody is offended by the ?C-word, undoubtedly he or she is a Beautiful Person.
If anybody complains about Christmas, why, that’s their First Amendment right. They’re speaking truth to power, and if you say anything in ?defense of the C-word, you’re nothing more than a Bitter ?Clinger.
So imagine my shock and surprise yesterday when I saw a 1:56-minute video on YouTube of the governor, and this is how it began:
“Hi, I’m Governor Patrick. ?Salaam alaikum.”
(That’s Arabic for “Dominus vobiscum.”)
“I want to take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very blessed Eid al-Adha. Eid Mubarak.”
Whoa! Hold it right there, Governor. If you can use the name of the Muslim holiday, what about … the C-word? Or Easter? Or Yom Kippur, for that matter?
“Muslims across Massachusetts are sacrificing to make their families, their neighborhoods and our commonwealth stronger and I want to thank you for that.”
At this point it would have seemed appropriate for Deval to give a “shout-out,” as his pal Barack would say, to the poor persecuted Tsarnaev family. Or maybe Tarek Mehanna, late of Sudbury, now of Terre Haute FCI since he was convicted of providing aid to al-Qaeda.
“I also want to thank Muslims in our state for helping us to build a unified commonwealth-wide community. We’re all in this together.”
It’s just that some of us in politically protected classes can have our holidays actually named by the governor; the rest of us can’t.
A call was placed to the governor’s office asking if he’ll be putting out a “Merry Christmas” video this year. Needless to say, the call was not returned. I found a 24-second message from Deval to the troops last year — “warm holiday greetings,” and 56 seconds of a “special holiday message” to the rest of us.
In 2011, Christians got 1:16 from Deval for the “holiday season.”
In both years, by the way, then-Lt. Gov. Tim Murray wished his soon-to-be-former constituents a “happy and healthy holiday season.” This year he’ll be having an even happier holiday season, because even though he’s left ?office in disgrace, at least he’s not doing 36 months at Lewisburg FCI, like his former bagman Mike McLaughlin.
Now, Deval has always had a problem with words like “terror,” or “hate crimes,” unless of course Christians, preferably white, are committing them. Remember how he once described 9/11, the biggest hate crime ever on American soil — “a failure of human understanding … a failure of human beings to understand each other, to learn to love each other.”
Eid Mubarak, everyone, a ?day late.
Order Howie Carr’s new book about the Whitey Bulger trial, “Ratman,” from howie?carrshow.com.