Where It's Always Christmas Eve

This from Political Diary:

"American liberals don't hate Christmas. They live it . . . American liberals live in a place where it is always Christmas Eve but never the end of the month. They sit, waiting for the gifts of joy and peace to appear beneath their tree, utterly clueless that someone, somewhere has to pay the bill." - Charleston City Paper columnist Michael Graham.

So true. And what would America look like if the lefties ran the place:

Ever wondered what local politics would look like if America was more solidly on the left? Take a gander at Arcata, a 17,000-strong university town perched on California's remote northwest coast. The City Council is dominated by four Green Party members, while the fifth is an independent. The august body has recently passed resolutions calling for the non-enforcement of the Patriot Act, U.S. withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the impeachment of President Bush -- who won just 16% of Arcata's vote in the last election.

Yet it's the local politics that really boggle the mind. In particular, the city council last month narrowly voted (3-2) to not act on a petition signed by 1,400 people demanding the removal of a century-old statue of President William McKinley from Arcata's downtown plaza. What did McKinley ever do so upset the good citizens of Arcata? It seems his leadership during the Spanish-American war makes him an advocate of "imperialism." Worse, he is known to be a Republican hero to White House aide Karl Rove, who two years ago visited his gravesite in Canton, Ohio.

The McKinley statue has thus undergone just about every form of desecration under the California sun. The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reports that "condoms have been placed on the thumb of the statue's extended right hand and left to rot. Cheese has been stuffed in its ears, and a gas mask once was placed over the president's chiseled face. Marijuana has been found growing around the statue's base." Mayor Mike Machi, the only non-Green Party member on the council, is philosophical about the fact that the statue has become a local cause celebre. "We've just about seen it all here," he says. Luckily, the rest of the country isn't like Arcata, though plenty of folks are trying to nudge it in just that direction.