Posted on 12/20/2004 7:34:48 AM PST by Ellesu
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
About 2 million friends and supporters of President Bush found something in their mailboxes this month that no other president has offered: A holiday card with a Bible verse.
This card has a line from Psalms, 95:2: "Let us come before him with Thanksgiving and extol him with music and song."
Presidents have been sending season's greetings since Calvin Coolidge wrote "Merry Christmas" on White House stationery in 1927. And many presidents issued proclamations about faith-related events varying from the National Day of Prayer to Ramadan.
But this administration is the first to include Scripture in the annual card, said Mary Evans Seeley, author of "Season's Greetings From the White House: The Collection of Presidential Christmas Cards, Messages and Gifts." Seeley and her husband have a complete collection of the presidential holiday cards.
First lady Laura Bush supervises the card selection. She picked cards with Bible verses when her husband was governor and has continued to do so in the White House.
This year's illustration is a painting of the Red Room of the White House by Cindi Holt, a Fort Worth, Texas, artist .
The Republican National Committee paid for production and distribution.
Only one previous president included an explicitly religious element in a card. In 1963, President Kennedy's card featured a photo of a creche set up in the East Room of the White House. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, had signed 30 cards before their final trip to Dallas.
None was ever mailed.
Good for Laura. She rocks!
> yule card with a Scripture
BWAAAHAHAHAAAA! Anybody else catch the irony here?
It's like a Hannukah card with verses from the Rig Veda...
The ACLU has plans to sue the White House for using their Franking privileges to pursue their Christian agenda.
Sarcasm
A President and his wife who walk the walk, and talk the talk. What more could be ask.
I'd like to know how many presidents write Merry Christmas instead of Season's Greetings... According to the article, Coolidge wrote Merry Christmas.
LIBs: The nerve! He is disenfranchaising millions of Americans! He is not being tolerant! Let us burn down the White House like the British!!!! YAOWARGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
I know you were being sarcastic, but the card was sent out from the Republican party, not the US government- - no government funds were used in the printing and mailing of the cards - - says so on the back.....
Such a class act. They choose a verse from the Psalms, thus including the Jewish part of our population in the greetings. Ain't it sweet to have believers in the WH?
Yep...not a DC postmark either. Mailed from Crawford, Texas.
President and Mrs. Bush highlight the Red Room of the White House in the 2004 White House Christmas card. Designed by Cindi Holt of Fort Worth, Texas, the original oil on canvas painting shows the room decorated for the holidays with a cranberry topiary and a glowing fireplace.
The inscription inside the card reads:
Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. Psalm 95:2 (NIV)
May songs of joy fill your home with warmth and your heart with happiness this holiday season. 2004
President and Mrs. Bush will send out more than 2 million Christmas cards this year to friends, family and foreign dignitaries. The cards, bearing a Crawford, Texas postmark, will be mailed on Friday, November 26, 2004.
First Lady Laura Bush really really gets it...Thank You, Mrs. Bush. ;o)
It could just as well have read
Bush sends out PAGAN greeting card containing Bible verse
ping..
It is beautiful. Thanks for posting it.
Bump for later. Thanks!
I don't believe the Administration has franking priviledges anyways.
Man, I better check the recylcing bin ...
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