Proof that Fox News reaches the North Pole has come to my attention. Apparently the elves are mad at Santa.

That is not so surprising — management is often the target of criticism, and that goes double if the top executive is someone in a fur-lined suit who takes all the credit for meeting production goals while remaining insufferably jolly.

But it is the nature of the elves' complaints that show the heavy hand of political propaganda coming from the south. As you know, it is hard to penetrate the inner workings of Mega Commercial Yuletide Inc., which is headquartered at the North Pole, but a crack journalist like me has his sources.

They tell me that the trouble began about six years ago. There first arose such a clatter over the most unlikely thing: Santa's penchant for saying "ho, ho, ho." Some of the elves put it around that Santa, far from being a force for hope and change at Christmas, was actually revealing himself as a Marxist. "What he really means is ho, ho, ho, Ho Chi Minh!" some muttered.

Others said, "He wasn't born at the North Pole, you know. Why won't he reveal his real birth certificate? We'll all catch cold before he does."

Then the elves began complaining about Santa's use of a teleprompter to give motivational speeches to the toy production line.

"If Santa is so darn smart, how comes he has to use a teleprompter?" an elf posted on a website popular with elves and trolls. "What's next, he's going to have to look over little Johnny's shoulder at Macy's to tell the kid what he will get for Christmas?"

Soon the rumor started that Santa was taking away the toy guns from his sack. It is true that at some of the houses that Santa visits on Christmas night, parents discourage kids from playing with toy guns, but the elfin malcontents blamed Santa himself. They said he is using his big boots to trample on the rights of kids who harmlessly like to imagine they are shooting living things dead.

And so it went on and on, reactionary assumptions made with each new alarm raised on the news cycle. The more the elves listened to their tiny radios and TVs for political messages coming from Castle Murdoch, the more spiteful and disagreeable they became, especially the older ones.

The elves have completely bought into the idea of the "War on Christmas," the Fox News seasonal favorite. When they hear that up there at the North Pole, they immediately see it as Santa threatening their livelihoods. They don't understand that, if anything, they are the agents of a secular, commercialized holiday. Something gets frosted in translation.

Similarly, the elves are all in favor of global warming, even though they don't believe in it. They think it's too darn cold up at the North Pole and resist Santa's efforts to bring science kits to worthy children. They also resent that Santa no longer puts lumps of coal in the stockings of the naughty kids. They deride this as the War on Coal meeting the self-esteem movement

Lately, Santa's workforce has picked up some new themes to harp about. They are no longer content to accuse Santa of sharing his milk and cookies with poor kids living in families of illegal immigrants. ("He's spreading a welfare mentality," they say.)

On their blogs, they have taken to calling him "Emperor Santa" and "Father Executive Order." One elf wrote, "He does not have the constitutional authority to declare who is naughty or nice. That is a matter for elected small folk meeting in a polar congress, putting their tiny brains together."

Where it will all end is something my North Pole sources cannot predict, but the Grinch must be happy. Who could the Grinch be, though?

Bill O'Reilly does bear a passing resemblance. Just saying.

Reg Henry is deputy editorial page editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Readers may e-mail him at rhenry@post-gazette.com.