Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

ST. PAUL: T-Paw references Goethe on Fox. Pawlenty called health care reform a shiny fishing lure and a Faustian bargain (hmm, is he familiar with those?). [Fox News via YouTube]

METRO AREA: Jets scrambled too late, says general. Military planes should have been in the air to protect the Twin Cities when an errant jet with preoccupied pilots passed by this month. [MPR News Cut]

MINNEAPOLIS: Fake folk? A local donor gave the Weisman Art Museum five paintings by folk artist Clementine Hunter that the FBI suspects are forgeries. [Associated Press]

WOODBURY: Dog bites man, hard. A retired cop lost an ear and much of his face. [Associated Press]

ST. CLOUD: Bridge open. The Granite City Crossing replaces the old DeSoto bridge found unsafe in post-I-35W collapse inspections. [St. Cloud Times]

STATEWIDE: Schools go begging. The 57 districts asking voters to approve new tax levies next week are among the 90 percent in Minnesota now levy-dependent to cover operating costs. [ECM Publishers]

Will got credit (and teasing) from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann for his revelation, but back in 2007 the Star Tribune’s Kim Ode included it as a fun fact at the end of her own fawning profile of Bachmann.

A year ago Bachmann got this greeting from Carlson when she appeared on “Fox & Friends”:

Congresswoman Bachmann joins us live now from St. Paul. Good morning to you! I feel like I can call you Michele, because — as people may or may not remember — you were my babysitter growing up! Good to see you again. And look at where you are now!

The two women are 10 years apart in age, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Will has Bachmann as a Humphrey Democrat in those days, while Carlson has waxed nostalgic about a pre-politically correct childhood.

Whatever their differences then, Bachmann and Carlson have by now converged on a kind of kooky, just-say-it conservatism that seems to work like catnip on cable-TV viewers of either political camp.

But what people can’t see is the sometimes fraught, sometimes idolatrous relationship of babysitter and babysat, as perhaps best expressed in Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes comics, and folksinger Dar Williams tear-jerker, “The Babysitter’s Here.”

Based on the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association numbers, federal funding has so far helped car owners replace 150 inefficient old cars, not two. That’s 2 percent of the 7,500 consumers who have signed on to participate in the program.

Carlson has a habit of drawing dubiously on her Minnesota roots — for example, citing her childhood experience of Christmas to advocate that free speech be suspended on that day, and claiming “the last time I checked, [former U.S. Sen.] Norm Coleman won the election after election night.”

Here’s today’s Fox News video clip:

CARLSON: By the way, I did my own crack research yesterday, spent a tremendous amount of time on this yesterday finding out information. In my home state of Minnesota, so far only two of these deals have actually been approved –

CO-HOST STEVE DOOCY: That’s all?

CARLSON: — by the government.

DOOCY: Wow.

CARLSON: Two in the entire state of Minnesota. And then you wonder about whether or not these dealers feel like they’re going to get their money from the government. Not so sure.

Washington state is ground zero for this year’s war after the government allowed a nativity scene on the Capitol grounds. The overtly Christian display led some atheists to request that their own sign be permitted, and the government relented. Then a Festivus fan wanted the traditional pole placed at the Capitol. But when Fred Phelps wanted to install a sign saying that Santa is a child molester who sends people to hell, Gov. Chris Gregoire said enough is enough and declared a moratorium on new religious (and areligious) displays until the matter could be reviewed.

When Chuck Norris heard of the flap, the actor planted his roundhouse kick firmly on the atheists he blames for starting the mess in the first place.

“Atheists from England to the West Coast of America are stepping up their efforts this year to make a bigger antagonistic splash on the Christmas scene,” said Chuck. “I am a patriot, and I believe that atheists are free to believe, speak and post whatever they want. This is America, and that’s their First Amendment right. But to do so with harassment and hatred under the guise of free speech is despicable. An anti-religious poster filled with spite is in no way equal to a religious symbol, such as a Nativity scene. Where are the political correctness police when religious followers are the victims?”

And while Chuck might believe in free speech, Gretchen Carlson, former Minnesota beauty queen and current Fox News “War on Christmas” correspondent, says not so much: “I’m all for free speech and free rights, just not on December 25th.”

Perpetually outraged William Donahue of the Catholic League weighed in: It’s the gay marriage supporters who are to blame.

“The root cause of the war on Christmas, which is conducted almost exclusively by well-educated white people in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia — the very same people who like gay marriage — has almost nothing to do with fidelity to law (the First Amendment in the U.S.): it has to do with ideology. The ideology is plainly an expression of left-wing secularism, and it is nothing if not anti-Western and anti-Christian. At its worst, it is driven by hatred; at its best, it is driven by a defensive posture, a deep sense of embarrassment over the legacy of Western civilization. There is no historical or moral justification for either. Moreover, those who are pushing this agenda generally lie about their work.”

Despite fingering white, educated seculars, Donahue in his next breath plays the Muslim card. “[T]his hatred of Christmas is not exclusive to the U.S. In England, Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary called Christmas ‘evil’ in a recent sermon.”

Choudary did warn Muslims not to celebrate Christmas. “Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of Christmas, because its observance will lead to hellfire. Protect your Paradise from being taken away – protect yourself and your family from Christmas,” he said.

While Donahue and Norris impart the wisdom of the founding fathers on Christmas, they missed an important part of history. The religious folk who began the American dream said roughly the same thing as the Muslim professor: Celebrating Christmas is the road to hell.

“The generality of Christmas-keepers observe that festival after such a manner as is highly dishonourable to the name of Christ,” said the Rev. Increase Mather in 1687. “How few are there comparatively that spend those holidays (as they are called) after an holy manner. But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in mad Mirth…”

In fact, conservative Christians banned Christmas in Massachusetts — the state that gave us gay marriage — until 1855.

Who will win the “War on Christmas”? If playing the Nazi card is an indication of having lost the debate, then the Minnesota Family Council may have put it out of play for the religious right.

“Some insist that singing a Christmas carol in a public school is a state endorsement of religion,” writes Family Council Communications Director Chuck Darrell. “Would the same people insist that reading Mien Kampf in social studies is a state endorsement of National Socialism (Nazis) as well? So tell me, what’s the difference?”

Over the past day, Gretchen Carlson, a co-host of “Fox & Friends” and the last Minnesotan to become Miss America (1989), invoked her local roots as part of a full-court press to put the issue – now an annual holiday tradition in its own right at Fox News — back on the national front burner. She started with a segment Wednesday morning on a controversy about a religious display at the Washington state Capitol. That night Bill O’Reilly, who has been working the latest wrinkles in this ratings-boosting war for at least a week, invited Carlson to appear on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Her gist: Freedom of speech is fine, but not on Christmas Day.

Transcript excerpts after the jump. Gretchen Carlson with Bill O’Reilly on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Dec. 10, 2008:

O’REILLY: So you were brought up in Minnesota, right?

CARLSON: Exactly.

O’REILLY: OK, now think back many, many years ago to when you were a child.

CARLSON: Thank you, Bill.

O’REILLY: I do that to everybody. None of this existed, correct?

CARLSON: No, my grandfather was a minister. So I have to – I’ll say that because I grew up spending a lot of time in the church.

O’REILLY: But none of it existed. There was no controversy over Christmas. …

CARLSON: We actually called it Christmas. …

O’REILLY: … What’s changed?

CARLSON: What’s changed is the whole politically correct environment that we live in. I’m all for people to have their rights of free speech. Just don’t choose December 25th to do it.

O’REILLY: Well, don’t be disrespectful. You can have freedom of speech without being disrespectful.

This morning, Carlson’s “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy picked up where O’Reilly left off in trying to talk her down.

DOOCY: We’ve got to be tolerant of people who celebrate holidays in December, like Ramadan [sic]. We’ve got to be tolerant. You’ve got to be tolerant of all people.

CARLSON: I am tolerant. I’m all for free speech and free rights, just not on December 25th.