Michael Smerconish this morning takes a mild look at the War Against Christmas. You’ll remember Smerconish, who has had a bit of a spiritual journey over the least few years. He began as a local right wing talk show host who subbed for Bill O’Reilly once in a while. He’s had a few moderate columns over the last twelve months, notably one where he praised Obama for a speech on race given here in Philly. Then Smerconish actually endorsed and voted for Obama. Well, O’Reilly has since cancelled his radio program, and Smerconish is staying away from the typical GOP talking head vitriol, at least for a while, and he’s surely not criticizing Republicans, so we get luke warm columns like today’s, not talking about the War on Christmas anymore, but about holiday cards, decisions, decisions. . . resulting in a meaningless and sappy Smerconish column from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

I suppose this high quality, along with yet another sappy column about Santa Claus, is what Inquirer publisher Brian Tierney means by the Philadelphia Inquirer holding a sacred trust to stay in business and serve the residents of the Delaware Valley. Sappiness with almost zero content does not serve the public, nor does an article written by an Inquirer reporter that ignores Jewish holiday traditions by claiming to track new Christian traditions. That’s what the feature fluff article in the Inquirer does today. It tracks the popularity of movie-going as a Christian holiday tradition, but never notes that the tradition, along with a Christmas dinner of chinese food, has been a Jewish tradition in this country for a long, long time.

OK, this is a minor issue, isn’t it? But it is a fact that going out to the movies has been a Jewish thing to do for some time on Christmas Day. Gentiles have been catching up with this tradition for the last many years, admittedly, but just forty years ago you wouldn’t have seen any Christians at the movies on Christmas Day. Heck, back in the day movie theaters weren’t even open. But Chinese Restaurants were, to cater to Jews, and over the years the traditional Jewish chinese food holiday tradition of going out for chinese came to include taking in a movie. To not include this sort of historical context in an article about booming moviegoing on Christmas Day is to show some cultural cluelessness. Is this mere incompetence, or a bias?

Brian Tierney is on record TODAY saying his ownership of the Philadelphia Inquirer is a public trust. I suggest he begin with quality and thoroughness, rather than follow with his Republican instincts towards incompetence and empty values. Tierney may think it is OK to go all fluffy and sappy al the time the couple days before Christmas, but at least he could instruct his reporters to get the facts straight if that’s the intent.