Early Sunday, NPR's Nina Totenberg, in making a point about the federal budget, asked her fellow panelists to "forgive the expression" when she referred to a party she had attended as a "Christmas party," instead of the presumably more inclusive "holiday party." By the time the sun set, her preemptive apology had gone viral online. Fox News picked up the story, and bloggers from the right and left had a field day with Totenberg. As one Huffington Post commenter noted, "The day is called Christmas. It is a federally recognized holiday. So the problem is?" Another called her a "politically correct chucklehead."
But of the hundreds of comments, this one really caught my eye: "Is this, forgive the expression, political correctness gone wild?"
On the face of it, I'd say, you bet. Don't we have more important things to worry about than whether a friend, coworker, or newscaster uses an expression like "Christmas party" or "Merry Christmas"?
huffingtonpost
