A Christmas tree outside Fox News headquarters was set on fire early Wednesday morning, and the sober minds at Fox believe this is a further escalation in the liberal War on Christmas. First, people say “Happy Holidays” and the next thing you know, your metal structure shaped to resemble a tree goes up in flames. And all the boys and girls in Whoville wept.

Here’s some video of the national tragedy.

The police already have a suspect in custody: Craig Tamanaha, who is homeless, allegedly climbed up the 50-foot tree — not bad for a 49-year-old — and shoved papers he’d lit on fire into the structure. He watched his handiwork from the street, shouting "Viva la revolución!” No, I’m just kidding about the last part. There’s no evidence this was a political attack or that Tamanaha’s motive was more complex than “fire, fire, fire.”

ABC 7 reports:

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said detectives are looking into whether mental illness was a factor.

"The motive I don't think is clear at this point," he said. "It's an individual that is known to us. He has a series of low level arrests and drug arrests. He was issued earlier this year some appearance tickets and didn't come back to court, which unfortunately is something we see all too often. Also has some low level arrests out of state.”

This morning on "Fox & Friends,” co-host Steve Doocy asked, “What kind of a person lights a Christmas tree on fire?” That’s presumably the answer to the “Jeopardy!” question “a perhaps mentally unwell arsonist.” It’s not as if the guy burned a house of worship. The Fox News chyron also described the burned tree as “all-American,” which is historically accurate if you consider Germany a US territory.

Co-host Brian Kilmeade launched into a stream-of-consciousness invective against soft-on-crime liberalism. He made 1970s rightwing rhetoric great again.

KILMEADE: This is emblematic of the cities out of control, defame and defund the police, and this bail reform that has these men and women, these assailants, these suspects out before they even can finish off the paperwork. This is what you get if you have these left-wing DAs and officials running these major cities. You get chaos.

Fox News geniuses presumably believe that we should imprison low-level offenders for life lest they commit more crimes. (This brings new meaning to Scrooge’s line, “Are there no prisons?”) However, they don’t apply this draconian sentiment to people who stormed the Capitol on January 6. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is hardly a “left-wing” reformer, especially when it comes to poor and minority defendants. Tamanaha’s last known address was in Brooklyn, but while the borough’s DA, Eric Gonzalez, is considered more progressive, he’s not freeing suspects “before they can even finish the off the paperwork."

Despite railing on air about chaos in the city streets, Kilmeade had earlier tweeted his thanks to the "NYPD and FDNY for scrambling so rapidly to help!!” In the same tweet, he declared New York City “lawless,” even though the police responded swiftly to the crime and apprehended the suspect. The whole reason we fund the police is because we assume people will break laws. Otherwise, we’re just subsidizing professional doughnut consumption.

Ainsley Earhardt reassured Fox News viewers that the burning of a single Christmas tree in New York City didn’t mean Christmas was cancelled. Fire doesn’t scare Santa. When he breaks into your house, he comes down a chimney.

EARHARDT: Don't worry. Don't worry. Do not be deterred. We will not be. We're going to rebuild it. We're going to rebuild it and we're going to build it back better ... Someone did this to spoil our Christmas, but that's not gonna happen.

But ... isn’t Build Back Better socialism? One Christmas tree is burned and she’s already resorting to socialism?

Former “View" host and tabloid news columnist Meghan ... something earned another lump of coal in her stocking for this absurd false equivalency.

MEGHAN MCCAIN: I don’t want to hear anything about how radical some of you believe republicans to be when there are lunatics running around New York City setting Fox News Christmas tree on fire.

Exit polls rarely break out the homeless demographic, so I’m not sure why Megs McCabe assumes that Tamanaha is the Democrats’ problem. When a white supremacist gunned down Black people at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, Fox News tried to spin it as an attack on Christianity in general and not Black people specifically. A homeless man sets fire to a Fox News Christmas tree and McCain acts like it’s a political hate crime.

Yes, we’re more concerned about the rightwing radicals who are actual members of Congress than we are about a homeless man with a cigarette lighter. We’d also prefer that there were no mentally ill people living on the streets, even if they aren’t setting trees on fire.

Merry Christmas!

[Mediaite]

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