'Tis the season to once again draw nigh and engage in our annual ridiculousness over the "War on Christmas," it seems. My fellow Huffington Post blogger Jeff Schweitzer has a rundown on what this all means, for anyone unaware that such a conflict is happening in America -- or, at the very least, in the minds of some Americans.

But just because the modern-day "War on Christmas" may not, in fact, exist does not mean that such a war never existed in America. The subject of Christmas was indeed at the heart of a previous bitter political dispute, but you've got to go pretty far back in time to find it. All the way back to the New England Puritans.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded, as we all know, on religious intolerance. Yes, you read that right. Contrary to what we are all taught as schoolchildren, the colony was not, in fact, founded on the principles of tolerance in worship. Far from it. In fact, the Puritans were actually fleeing such religious tolerance in the Netherlands (because they were, quite rightfully, afraid their children would be so influenced by this tolerance that they'd leave their parents' stiff and intolerant religious sect -- which the children simply wouldn't be able to do in the New World). To make sure they wouldn't be tempted by such intolerance in their new home, they went about legislating their version of Christianity to rule over the colony.

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Hot on the heels of yesterday's contest, we're once again going to our readers for suggestions. This Friday and next Friday will be our annual hijacking of the year-end awards categories from The McLaughlin Group. So it's time to review the year, and come up with some names to fill the following slots.

Feel free to suggest anyone or anything you'd like. The only rules of interpretation for what the categories mean are your own. If I think they're the best suggestion I've heard, I may use some of your suggestions in this Friday's column. We'll be returning to this subject next week, for part two, with a whole new set of categories. For now, who would you select for any or all of the following? Post your choices in the comments!

Biggest Winner of 2011

Biggest Loser of 2011

Best Politician

Worst Politician

Most Defining Political Moment

Turncoat Of The Year

Most Boring

Most Charismatic

Bummest Rap

Fairest Rap

Best Comeback

Most Original Thinker

Most Stagnant Thinker

Best Photo Op

Worst Photo Op

Enough Already!

Worst Lie

Capitalist Of The Year

Honorable Mention

Person Of The Year

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Peggy Noonan, a consummate Washington insider with impeccable conservative credentials, recently came up with a nice turn of phrase to describe Newt Gingrich: "He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, 'Watch this!' " Back in Newt's heyday, the comic strip Doonesbury portrayed Gingrich as a lit bomb with a short fuse, who would occasionally explode with a bang. Right and Left seem to be in agreement on Newt's resemblance to trinitrotoluene, in other words (or, maybe, "Newtroglycerine"?). Which leaves only one key question to be answered: When, exactly, will this "Newtsplosion" take place?

Seeing how it's an interesting test of political prognostication, and seeing as how we haven't done one in a while, we're going to hold our very own "Call The Newtsplosion" contest. First we're going to outline the possible impact on the presidential race in a few wide ranges (so we all understand what the Newtsplosion's timing will mean), and then we're going to throw the contest open to all commenters at the end.

So, ready to play? Here we go....

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We've got quite a few awards to hand out this week, so we're going to just quickly note two events from the past week, and move right along. Oh, and as for this week's article title, well, it just felt appropriate, somehow. I promise, by the end, we'll have at least one blatant Alice In Wonderland reference to justify it, OK?

The week dawned with the exit of Herman Cain from the Republican nomination battle. Cain, love him or hate him, will be missed on the campaign trail because he had two qualities most of the other Republicans are sorely lacking: personality and cheerfulness. Cain was a character, you have to admit. And -- right up until he had to defend himself from the echoes of his social life -- he was almost always smiling and upbeat. After his sex life entered the discussion, he looked a lot more annoyed and a lot less cheerful, but while it lasted Cain was a bright spot in the Republican field of snoozers and the Uncles McGrumpy (and Aunt Shrill). So Cain will be missed, at least for that.

That wacky gang of Republicans running the House of Representatives acted swiftly and decisively this week -- to overturn a big, bad environmental rule that didn't actually exist. At some point, this morphs from sheer ridiculousness into downright Swiftian satire. Or, perhaps, "clinical paranoia" (but then I am no doctor and do not even play one on the internet, so I'll leave such sweeping conclusions to others). Seriously, we pay these guys for this? Sigh.

You know, it strikes me that this week may be one politics-watchers look back on when proving the thesis: "Anything can happen in politics, and usually does." I can picture seeing some wise pundit a few years down the road making the historical reference: "Yeah, but remember when Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul were leading the polls in the Iowa caucuses? Anything can happen... just anything..."

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[Program Note: Two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote the following column, hoping that the Obama administration was going to live up to its promise to have a "science-based" drug policy. I spoke of two examples: medical marijuana, and the "morning after" pill. Today seemed a real good day to re-run this column. While some on the Left are expressing surprise and outrage over Kathleen Sebelius' recent overturning of the FDA's scientific conclusion on the morning-after pill, some of us weren't so surprised because we've been paying attention to this from the beginning of Obama's term. Politics, sadly, has trumped science in the Obama administration's drug policies -- as it has in all previous administrations. Anyway, here's a trip down memory lane, for those interested. Two points about the article: the links to the White House site are old and may not work. Also, there is an update at the end about the question Obama did answer at his press event.]

[Originally published 3/25/09]

President Obama is taking your questions now, and will answer them tomorrow. In a move to make Obama more accessible and answerable to the public, the White House web site is soliciting questions from the public for Obama to answer on their new "Open For Questions" page. So, given the opportunity, what question would you ask the president? Personally, I would choose: "Will drug policy be included in your new science-based approach to government, or will you let politics continue to trump science in this arena?" Because there have been two specific news items in the past few weeks, and while they are almost completely unrelated, they both come from the "science/politics" debate on drugs. The first is the "morning after" pill, and the second is medical marijuana.

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OK, all you Ron Paul fans out there -- this article's for you.

Since the 2012 Republican nomination fight has, so far been marked by its "anything could happen" nature, and since Ron Paul is still very much in the race in places like Iowa, let's explore how he could actually win the Republican nomination. This scenario is unthinkable for many inside-the-Beltway types and mainstream media types alike, but since it is the height of speculation season, a winning Paul scenario is worth considering. Two of them, in fact.

Path to a Paul victory (number one)

Ron Paul spends a lot of money in Iowa attacking Newt Gingrich. But his hidden weapon in the caucuses turns out to be how committed his mostly-young supporters are. Young people flock out in the freezing weather to the caucuses, and their participation swamps the other demographics who show up. Because the young are so committed, in other words, they turn out in outsized proportions to all other groups.

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[Program Note: President Barack Obama gave a speech today in a small town in Kansas. The reason he chose this venue for this speech was to draw historical comparisons with a speech given there by Teddy Roosevelt, over one hundred years ago. While you may see some clips of Obama's speech in the news, few will bother to look up the original speech. Which is a shame, and which is why we present it today. We leave comparisons with Obama's speech to others, for now, mostly because the speech itself is a long one. But it is worth reading to the end, to see where the real (capital-P) Progressives stand in American history.]

-- Chris Weigant

The New Nationalism
Theodore Roosevelt (Osawatomie, Kansas, August 31, 1910)

We come here today to commemorate one of the epoch-making events of the long struggle for the rights of man -- the long struggle for the uplift of humanity. Our country -- this great Republic -- means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy, the triumph of popular government, and, in the long run, of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him. That is why the history of America is now the central feature of the history of the world; for the world has set its face hopefully toward our democracy; and, O my fellow citizens, each one of you carries on your shoulders not only the burden of doing well for the sake of your country, but the burden of doing well and of seeing that this nation does well for the sake of mankind.

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Good News, Bad News

This month Obama poll watchers got some good news, and some bad news. This was capped off, at the end of the month, by the Washington punditocracy making an incredibly stupid comparison between polling for Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter -- which we will address at the end of the column (complete with a "guess the president" graph quiz, for your amusement).

But we've got a lot to cover, so let's just jump right in with Obama's chart for November, 2011.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

November, 2011

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Governments -- state and federal -- have three big ways of raising money. The first, of course, is taxes, which are endlessly fought over and usually get most of politicians' attention. The second is fees -- on a state level, registering a car or getting a driver's license; on a federal level getting a passport or becoming naturalized, for instance. But the third one hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention at the federal level: fines.

Because the states are strapped for cash, they've taken several measures to increase revenue. Taxes have been raised in some states (and lowered in others). Going down to the D.M.V. (or M.V.A., or whatever your state calls their drivers' license bureau) has gotten more expensive for most people. And, on the state level, fines have gone through the roof. That parking ticket which used to cost ten or twelve bucks now can cost $50 or $60. Minor speeding tickets often cost hundreds of dollars now.

So why isn't the federal government getting behind this idea? Raising fines is good politics, for the most part. After all, to incur a fine, you have to have done something wrong. The fine itself is a punishment. So it's easier for a politician to vote for raising a fine than it is to raise a fee or a tax, it would seem.

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A few recent news items caught my eye today, so I thought we'd combine them here for a revival of the "Three-Dot Thursday" concept. As always, these are presented as an homage to the late, great Herb Caen, pioneer of "three-dot journalism." So without further ado...

... There's apparently a new effort to repatriate the bodies of some U.S. Navy men who died in the line of duty... over two centuries ago. For those who have always wondered why "...to the shores of Tripoli" is a line in the Marine Corps theme song, it goes back to the Barbary Coast pirate days. For decades, relatives of those killed in this battle have been trying to get the bodies exhumed and shipped back home, but with Ghaddafi in charge of things in Libya, the effort never went anywhere. Now that he's been overthrown, a new push is on to bring the bodies back. Senator John McCain seems to be blocking the effort for now, but still the story is an interesting one, if you're in the mood for some history...

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