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Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images file
This December 1, 2011 file photo shows the 2011 National Christmas Tree after being lit by US President Barack Obama and the First Family during a ceremony on The Ellipse near the White House in Washington, DC.
The Colorado blue spruce passed away "due to complications resulting from transplant shock" just 14 months after it was planted in the Ellipse field outside the White House, the National Park Service said May 4, 2012. Born on a tree farm in New Jersey, it replaced a similar tree knocked down in a wind storm after 33 years.
A successor tree -- also a Colorado blue spruce, from an undisclosed state adjacent to the US capital -- has been identified, and it will be planted in late October, the federal agency said. The ceremonial lighting of the National Christmas Tree is a Washington tradition that dates back to 1923 when then-president Calvin Coolidge flicked the switch on a fir tree festooned with 2,500 electric bulbs. Last Christmas, in a nod to 21st century energy efficiency, the tree featured 65 sets of programmable color-changing LED lights as well as 160 starburst ornaments in an heirloom topper design.
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National Park officials will remove the tree from outside the White House on Saturday and a new tree will be planted in October. Msnbc.com's Al Stirrett reports.
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...to be replaced with a Mawlid shrub.
More tax-dollars wasted...
No war on Christamas, huh ? The national Christmas tree was an obvious victim of agent orange ! There is an IED waiting for you Mr. Easter Bunny.
A travesty I tell you, because no one is talking about the millions of innocent unsprouted baby trees that were killed by heartless, heathen aborists.
"arborists"
Arbor- trees. A play on words. Intended to be--- good lord if you don't get the joke then never-mind.
LOL - NC was fixing your spelling because the "play on words" was not really apparent. That kind of joke doesn't work too well on a post.
The tree realized who its president is and lost the will to live.
See? Everything Obama deals with dies/is ruined.
srsly! good! there shud be national mango tree!
Obummer!
The poor tree probably died from over fertilization from all the bull@!$%# the politicians present.
Great comment, Arthur! I might also add....this is news?
No, nobody read the letters carved in the tree....S-O-"I"-L-Y-N-D-R-A.....
Obama killed it. It was an honor killing. The tree wanted to live in a free republic and pursue the American dream but Obama wanted it to marry a camel and wear an abaya.
First of all, our tax dollars go for transplanting Xmas trees??? What kind of morons are running this country?
Second, "Born on a tree farm in New Jersey . . ." What kind of morons are writing for msnbc?
Maybe it is about time to stop pissing money away on stupid $hit when our country is falling apart. No one cares when roads crumble or bridges collapse, lets get our damn priorities straight.
Oh, what the heck, just use the tax payers money (us, you and me) and get another tree, bigger and more expensive. So what if we can't find jobs, lost our homes and our tree, lost retirement trying to survive, the president NEEDS HIS TREE! Maybe if he stopped pissing on it ........
I agree! Why is this news?! Who cares about Obama's dead tree? How many people throw their's away?!
Wow! Even the trees are having a hard time surviving under President Obama.
O BAMA KILLED Bin Laden, his own words, now he's killed christmas.. go figure
How many more things is Obama going to ruin?
Well,well, well, well, well. What would you exspect from a Liberal Tree from a Liberal State ? Well.....Dah !
This is King Obama's sign that he is going to loose on Election Day and all of his Secular-Socialist Machine will finally die, just like the tree did, BY IT's ROOTS !
Leave to to Obama to kill a symbol of Christianity.
RIP tree for your roots weren't strong enough to withstand the troubles and the changes just like our Govt is each day getting bombarded in every which way. Look forward for a Govt that offers peace and prosperity and that brings unity to ALL humanity and we know that no human can do this because it would take A GOD to make the world a righteous and justice for all system. Therefore we need to get down on our knee and ask The ALmighty to deep root our Govt where it can stand FORVER and let no man bring it down to time indefinte under HIS KINGDOM RULE.
A government to stand forever??? R U INSANE??? Don't think for a minute that it can't get any more corrupt than it already is............ Thank God and our Founding Fathers for the Second Amendment..............
I love it! A tree dies on my watch and I still get people blaming bush for all the trouble I created! Whats fascinating is that my predecessor also inherited a mess! The melt down of the dot.com bubble slid the economy into a deep recession. We had the enron scandal and tyco scandal. 9/11 and he had a split congress! Thank GOD I Didn't have that to deal with. Bush took Clinton's mess, I mean if we can still blame Bush for my troubles, he gets to blame slick willy for the one he took over! And within 18 months the economy came roaring back. Why is it after almost 4 years I havent gotten anything turned around! Heck I even had both house and senate in my back pocket! I spend more in 6 months, than was spent in the entire year of 2001! Less than 6 months and I can go back to work in an economy that someone competent is running!
Well the poor Christmas Tree died just like the economy has after Obama took office, not to mention jobs.
But he thinks he got Bin Laden, yeah right he went right in there and got him. No Navy Seals involved.
it's Bush's fault!