Is everybody sitting down? No? OK, then, we won't ask why you operate your computers standing up, and more important, we will give you time to seat--and collect--yourselves for the following mind-blowing revelation: One of Bill O'Reilly's key assertions in his heroic prosecution of the beleaguered-believer side of the War Against Christmas APPEARS NOT ACTUALLY TO BE TRUE.

We know. Take some deep breaths here and prepare yourselves: The Plano, Tex., Superintendant of Schools, Douglas J. Otto, has circulated a memo disputing the veracity of O'Reilly's claim that students in the Plano District's Caligula-like Christmas-deriding orbit were not permitted to wear red and green. (The cable crusader was maddeningly silent whether the individual sporting of red or green alone counted as a sin against the mad flavor of Plano secularism.)

The Plano District also notes the following:

Dr. Otto said that our attorney requested of Mr. O'Reilly that, in the future, he ask his fact checkers to do a more thorough job of confirming the facts before he airs them.

Dr. Otto also requested that Santa bring him an invisible raygun and a nice brown spotted pony. Because you know, it's not like reporters get shitcanned for inventing their own stories based in Texas. -- HOLLY MARTINS

School Says O'Reilly Fabricated Dress Code Story [Romenesko]