There's a new twist this year in the annual War over Christmas. (If you need a primer on the battles and skirmishes so far, I recommend visiting the "Help Save Christmas" blog—after all, as its blogger states: "The war on Christmas can only be confronted if Americans are aware of its existents [sic]".) 

This year, it's not about rebelling against "Happy Holidays!" like Fox News commanded its troops to last year, or keeping the Christ in "Christmas Tree" like the year before.  No, this year it's about keeping the "ho" in "ho ho ho."

The ho story, such as it is, originated in Sydney's trashy Daily Telegraph, which is, surprise, surprise, owned by none other than Rupert Murdoch.  So, expect to hear a lot about this on Fox, too, where it will be billed by the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Father Christmas himself, as "the latest example of political correctness gone mad."

By the way, I'm betting that within a week, The Globe's Jeff Jacoby will have caught the Christmas spirit, and that he will somewhere in his inevitable rant on the outrage at hand repeat verbatim the term "political correctness gone mad."

The problem is, there's not much of a story here.  It's proof positive that the likes of O'Reilly are just spoiling for a fight—in the war on Christmas the Battle of "ho ho ho" is what Tonkin was to Vietnam, and WMDs were to Iraq: a lame excuse to start something.  I mean, there's more than a whiff of desperation in the claim, made by Australian Childhood Foundation head Joe Tucci, that "There is no stronger tradition for children than Santa's ho, ho, ho."

It's necessary in War to employ hyperbole, of course, and to throw around specious superlatives.  But "no stronger tradition than Santa's 'ho ho ho'?"  Really?

A close look at the story itself doesn't yield any juicy details or new insights about the enemies of Christmas, that's for sure.  Someone at one of Australia's many Santa recruitment firms, Westaff, which supplies hundreds —HUNDREDS!-- of Santas to shopping malls around the country, reportedly "told its trainees that the 'ho ho ho' phrase could frighten children and could even be derogatory to women." The last bit, which is the politically correct bit, is not substantiated.

A spokesperson from Westaff is quoted as saying, "Part of our advice to our Santas is that they should be mindful of children having their first Santa experience.  We ask our Santas to try techniques such as lowering their tone of voice and using 'ha, ha, ha' to encourage the children to come forward and meet Santa."

So, it's really a non-story.  But, predictably, it's already being spun into an international incident by the right in the tabloids, on Fox, and in conservatard corners of the blogosquare, and is shaping up to be this year's Christmas Battle Royal. 

The Daily Telegraph ran right out to the Mom On The Street to show the devastating effect of political correctness on God-fearing folks everywhere:

Sydney mother Maybel Lopez said she wanted her daughter Andria, 5, to grow up hearing Santa's "ho, ho, ho" just like she had and she did not realise it had other connotations.

"It's what Santa has been saying his whole life - my whole life. It is just a normal thing really for him to say 'ho, ho, ho'," Ms Lopez said.

In all its fair and balanced glory, The Telegraph did not manage to find any hoes on the street who had been harmed by Santa's careless ribaldry.  I can't imagine they're that hard to find.

What is interesting here is not the story itself, which is not a story at all.  What is interesting is the media shift from the threat to religious nomenclature ("keeping the Christ in 'Christmas Tree,'" insisting stores greet their patrons with "Merry Christmas!" not "Happy Holidays!") to the obvious racial and gender implications in dropping the "H-bomb."

In Murdoch's world, 'tis the season to mobilize the right with PC hobgoblins. With the influence of the religious fringe waning, is it any wonder the new hobgoblins in the Culture Wars are PC defenders of blacks and women? "Ho" is, indisputably, of jive origin, after all, and it refers to females.  Either that, or it's a Chinese surname. 

In an extraordinary campaign year where the white, male-dominated GOP may face the double-whammy of a Clinton-Obama ticket, is it really surprising that the specter of censure by the PC police would center on race and gender this time around?

The "logic" of the "political correctness gone mad" hypothesis is that the hypersensitivity of minorities, most notably the unholy trinity of blacks, gays and women (women aren't a minority, of course, but uppity women supposedly are), leads to excessive, often outlandish, always un-American demands on their part to curtail the wholesome thought, speech, and activities of normal, God-fearing, hard-working, all-American folks.

And where examples can be found, they are, indeed, sensational.  Think back a few years to the case of David Howard, the white director of a Washington D.C. municipal agency who, according to sources, "told his staff that, in light of budget cutbacks, he would have to be 'niggardly' with funds." Howard was forced to resign after a public outcry and accusations of racism.

While such things do happen, they happen mercifully so rarely that they don't seem to be indicative of any real trend.  But the coverage they get is so out of proportion that you could be forgiven for thinking we're on the verge of a PC police state. 

The Battle of the Hoes represents not so much any overwhelming evidence of "political correctness gone mad," regardless of what Jeff Jacoby says in this Sunday's paper.  The job of the right this time of year is not to spread yuletide cheer.  It's to spread yuletide fear.  The Battle of the Hoes is yet more evidence of the right's desperation for holiday humbugaboos.