Fox News Christmas Tree Set on Fire in Suspected Arson

The 50-foot Christmas tree outside FOX News headquarters in New York City caught fire early Wednesday morning, filling the building with smoke, in what appears to be an act of arson. A 49-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly setting the blaze and is in custody; police said he acted alone and that the crime did not appear to be premeditated or politically motivated. No one was injured in the fire.

Suzanne Scott, CEO of FOX, said the company would be rebuilding what it calls the “All-American Christmas tree” as a message that there can be peace, light and joy even in a dark moment.”

“We will not let this deliberate and brazen act of cowardice deter us,” she told staffers in a memo. The company had just had an elaborate lighting ceremony for the tree on Sunday night.

In a bizarre soliloquy on FOX & Friends after the incident, co-host Ainsley Earhardt tried to make the Fox Christmas tree about Hanukkah. “It’s a tree that unites us,” she said. “It’s brings us together. It’s about the Christmas spirit. It is about the holiday season. It’s about Jesus. It’s about Hanukkah. It is about everything we stand for as a country.” Hm. OK.

Many on Twitter pointed out the obvious irony that FOX News obsessively accuses Democrats every year of waging a “war on Christmas,” to the exclusion of all other real news happening in the world, and that now its own tree has burned down. There is certainly a metaphor in there somewhere, but I will resist the urge to articulate it myself.

That said, of course, arson is never funny, the disturbed man who allegedly burned down the tree should get some help and/or go to jail, and it is a true Christmas blessing that no one was hurt.