“I think part of what we're seeing,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and an NRA board member, “sadly is again Rahm Emanuel's comment never let a good crisis go to waste. And the gun control advocates for a long time have jumped on every tragedy and tried to exploit it in unhelpful ways.” “People where I live,” said Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina – “I’ve been Christmas shopping all weekend – have come up to me: ‘Please don’t let the government take my guns away.’”

First, I do not ever want to go Christmas shopping with Lindsay Graham. Second, it is the gun lobby that is demagoguing the Newtown shooting –  NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre’s response last week was nothing but a panegyric to guns and those who shoot them, which seems kind of tasteless, to say the least.

But the issue goes way beyond bad taste. A rabid, unelected and well-funded cabal has decided it can override the popular will through fear mongering and money, and it seems eager to bring down the government over a millionaire’s tax and a rational gun law. We have seen such disdain for flabby democracy before. It brought Hitler to the Reichstag in 1933.

This is my only post of Christmas week, and I don’t want to dwell on the lunatic fringe at a time when all our children are briefly home together, and our goal is to celebrate life and rebirth, family and friends. That is all. In light of what is happening in the world, that is a lot, and we are thankful to have it.

Keep the faith. Happy Hannukwanzmas!