According to this AP article, SeaTac Airport has restored the Christmas trees in an obvious sign of the amount of public outcry had its desired effect. Somewhere, John Gibson and Bill O’Reilly are smiling.

Christmas trees are going back up at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Pat Davis, president of the Port of Seattle commission, which directs airport operations, said late Monday that maintenance staff would restore the 14 plastic holiday trees, festooned with red ribbons and bows, that were removed over the weekend because of a rabbi’s complaint that holiday decor did not include a menorah.

Please understand that I’m glad that the trees have been restored to their original locations because it’s a loss for the ACLU and their PC police. Still, I’m dismayed that reporter Gene Johnson chose to call the trees “holiday trees.” In other words, Johnson and the AP are more PC than even the Seattle Airport is.

“Given that, the holiday trees will be replaced as quickly as possible,” he said. Davis added that the rabbi “never asked us to remove the trees; it was the port’s decision based on what we knew at the time.”

This is what’s commonly refered to as CYA. The airport manager made a boneheaded decision and now he’s saying that he made the decision because he thought they might get sued. Why couldn’t he just say that he overreacted and that he’s making things right? Here’s my favorite part of the article:

After the removal, some airline workers decorated ticketing counters with their own miniature Christmas trees. Customer service agents with Frontier Airlines pooled their money Monday morning to buy four 1-foot-high Christmas trees, which they placed on the airline’s ticketing counter. Atop a Delta counter, workers put up a tree several feet tall.

Chalk this up to the airport employees’ unwillingness to let the PC police have the final say in the matter and to show that someone in the airport makes decisions based on common sense.

UPDATE: Make sure you check out Christi’s post on this at CommonSenseAmerica, too. Christi does a great job of skewering the PC Police in her post.

Technorati Tags: Politically Correct, Christmas Trees, O’Reilly Factor, John Gibson, FOX News

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. [...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: ACLU, Lawyers, Political Correctness | [...]

   Pingback by Let Freedom Ring » Blog Archive » The Trees Are Restored — December 12, 2006 @ 8:49 am

2. [...] Wizbang has a different take, so fair is fair. Also see California Conservative, [...]

   Pingback by Christmas Returns to Seattle » Right Pundits — December 12, 2006 @ 12:29 pm