This is what Der Spiegel has to say on Bush and the honor (via Medienkritik):

Heartfelt congratulations to US President George W. Bush for winning the prestigious Time magazine "Man of the Year" award for the second time. We couldn’t agree with Time’s editors more. They say he won because of his successful re-election campaign (true) and his bold, uncompromising leadership (The Microsoft Word synonym for uncompromising? Stubborn. Can’t argue there.) Then again, they also say he won because of his forthright connection with the American people. Here, we’d clash swords. Wasn’t it Bush who spent much of his first term lying to the people about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction? Still, as Time editor Jim Kelly points out, Bush remains one of the world’s most polarizing figures and he single-handedly reshaped the global rules of politics "to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership."

Bush joins an elite list of past world leaders who have been honored by Time. Each year since 1927 the magazine has singled out "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse." The list includes many past US presidents. It also features Adolf Hitler (1938), Joseph Stalin (1939 and 1942) And Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran (1979)

Strangely, Bush -- known to prize loyalty and not to forgive easily -- told Time he doesn’t want people to like him. "I think the natural instinct for most people in the political world is that they want people to like them," he said. "On the other hand, I think sometimes I take kind of a delight in who the critics are." Does he want a list of names?

This morning’s Real Clear Politics page provoked the following thought. Between Anthony Browne’s lamentation of European cultural suicide and Francis Fukuyama’s Venn diagram equating blue-state Democrats and "Euro-Atlanticists," I was driven back to Elvis Presley’s immortal "Blue Christmas." But emphatically not this one.

But seriously folks: when both Tony Blair and George W. Bush (both well-known as faithful Christians) scrub their seasonal statements out of a misplaced desire not to seem to exclude anyone, they wittingly or unwittingly send a powerful message of exclusion...to those who celebrate "the reason for the season." Let us remind our leaders that it’s possible to respect and include "the Other," and to lead diverse, pluralistic societies, without forgoing recognition of the central holiday on the calendar of most of their citizens. George W. Bush can personally wish us all a "merry Christmas" while at the same time reaching out in "good will toward men" to everyone, believer and non-believer, Christian and non-Christian, alike. Christmas is a generous, welcoming holiday. GWB should in fact encourage American Christians to reach out in generous fellowship to all their neighbors. I’ll leave it to our brothers and sisters in the U.K. to help Tony Blair figure out how to be true to himself.

O.K., I think I discovered the Democratic plan of attack for 2006, 2008, and beyond. That great Demo strategist The Daily Kos thinks that Montana can be made into a swing state. He points out that whereas Gore got 33% of the Montana vote, Kerry got 38% (Bush went from 58% in 2000 to 59% in 2004). Because of some state issues that the Demos have been able to use, they now have a majority in the state Senate and four out of five state-wide offices. Kos thinks that Montana may become a swing state because there are some "libertarian" tendencies there, and he quotes with approval a reader who writes: "Westerners want candidates with spine. You could probably run on gay marriage in Montana if your campaign plan was to bar-fight your way across the state--people would respect that." Not all liberals are "pencil-necked spinless wimps" and its time to make Montana into a swing state! Well, this is a bit optimistic, I’m guessing. The folks I met in Montana, cowboys all I admit, might be persuaded over time to vote for a national Democrat, but not in my lifetime. If this is Democratic optimism, they’re hurtin’.

Last weekend my husband and I were obliged to attend the "Holiday Brunch" sponsored by his boss (he works for a major Pharmaceutical company) for the research and development department of his company. Of course, it was very nice of his boss to go to the trouble and the food and the company were all just fine. The problem was the huge exercise in absurdity that kept all of these executives from saying "Merry Christmas." It was painful to watch as one co-worker or spouse after another approached us with limp hand and lame smile to offer their "Happy Holidays" greeting. But it was delightful to watch their stunned reaction as I responding in kind with a bold "Merry Christmas" or better still, "Christmas Blessings".

Hugh Hewitt links and responds to a lengthy post by Jeff Jarvis about our seasonal battles about Christmas and the public square. Lord knows that I have commented on and contributed to these battles, and I’m not about to stop now.

Of course, I wish that they weren’t shouting matches more often than not. And I’m also glad when participants on both sides retain their sense of proportion, with conservative "religionists" (to use Stephen Carter’s phrase) recognizing that there is such a thing as real persecution out there, as opposed to annoying insults and harrassment, and liberal secularists recognizing that there is real theocracy out there, which is often engaged in the aforementioned persecution.

But I’m glad that we’re having conversations, and that at least much of the time they’re more or less civil. Imposing a solution from above, silencing one or the other side (or both sides) in the name of peace, just postpones the "day of reckoning." It’s the fights that end in conversations and the conversations that end in fights that in the end help create the shared stakes in a regime, at least as long as the regime itself offers a principled respect for all sides and stands for something higher than temporal peace.

Here’s James Madison on property:

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man’s land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

The Pew Forum has this interesting report on Muslims in Europe. It is chock-full of data and analysis, and should be read in conjunction with this article from the Weekly Standard.

The Washington Post reports that 3 Iraqi election workers were brutually gunned down in Baghdad and two huge bombs exploded outside Shi’ite holy areas in Najaf and Karbala, killing at least 64 civilians. Understandably, media coverage will focus on the horrible body count. But note one section in the middle of the article on how Sunni clerics and even al-Sadr’s people (who are now invested in the elections) have reacted (it’s worth excerpting at length):

"I swear to God, even if they burn all the elections centers, we will still go and vote," said Ali Waili, 29, a taxi driver reached by telephone in Karbala. "We have been mistreated for a long time, we have been tortured for a long time." In the wake of the attacks, leading Shiite figures appealed for calm. The movement of Moqtada Sadr, a young cleric whose Mahdi Army militia has twice led uprisings against U.S. forces, condemned the attack and dismissed the prospect of sectarian strife. "It is clear that there are some trying to impose conflict and civil war in Iraq," said Ali Yassiri, a top aide to Sadr. "Deceiving Iraqis is difficult. . . . These attacks will result in nothing but insistence on proceeding toward the Iraq of the future." Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed Hakim, who with Sistani is one of the country’s four most important clerics, called the bombing an attempt to "incite sectarian sedition." A similar call for restraint was heard at the Ibn Taimiya Sunni mosque in Baghdad, which was struck by at least two mortar rounds at 7 a.m. Four guards were wounded, one of them seriously; windows were shattered and wood paneling was damaged. Those responsible "must be trying to incite sectarian strife, but this will not happen," said a mosque caretaker, Ali Mashhadani.

The King of Belgium honored the American veterans of the Battle of Bulge, the largest land battle for American forces in war.

Veterans from across the United States returned Saturday to find this market town that was at the center of the fighting much as it was on that bitter cold December in 1944 — covered in snow and buffeted by wind.

The old soldiers, wearing military berets and caps, were greeted with warm applause, hugs and kisses from a grateful crowd that lined the streets.

"I’m very happy to see so many people come out for this event," said Miasy Dumont, 68, from nearby Ludelange, Luxembourg. "This is the last time I’m sure. In 10 years there will be no more veterans."

My very own copy of the extended version Return of the King DVD! Here’s a review by Jonathan V. Last of The Weekly Standard.

Season’s Greetings (actually a hearty "Merry Christmas") from the editors of The Weekly Standard.

Perhaps it should not surprise us that an editor for Yale University recently admitted that twelve years ago university presses could count on 1000 guaranteed sales, but now it’s 200. And I bet literary theorists sell the least. Mark Bauerlein, in Philosophy and Literature reviews a book about bad writing by academics. The issue, as a particular matter, revolves around the Bad Writing Contest, the winner--a professor of rhetoric at Berkeley--wrote this: