Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Barack Obama Day -- Perry County, Alabama

Barack Obama, please talk some sense into Alabama's Perry County Commission.

MARION, Ala. (AP) -- A small central Alabama county whose mainly black residents gave Barack Obama more than 70 percent of the vote on Election Day has created an annual holiday in honor of the president-elect.

The Perry County Commission voted 4 to 1 to observe the second Monday in November as "The Barack Obama Day." County offices will close and its roughly 40 workers will get a paid holiday.

The sponsoring commissioner, Albert Turner Jr., said the holiday is meant to highlight the Democratic president-elect's victory as a way to give people faith that difficult goals can be achieved.

The majority of the county's 12,000 residents are black.

The county commission's three black members and one of its two white members voted for the resolution.

Commissioner Brett Harrison said Wednesday he voted against the resolution because of the holiday costs to the county, which has a $2.2 million annual payroll and is one of the poorest in the state. He said closing the courthouse would also idle some state employees.

"I'm a Democrat, but just in these financial times, it's not using the county's money wisely," Harrison told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday. "The recognition is certainly well-founded."

A PAID holiday?

That's flat-out irresponsible given the cost to the county.

Obama should issue a statement directly from the "Office of the President-elect," recommending that the PAID Barack Obama holiday be eliminated.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid the country has "jumped the shark."

Mary said...

It's nuts!

Anonymous said...

Sheeeet! Only an elite 40 gets paid?b All 12,000 blacks should get paid for O day! All praise the messiah!

Anonymous said...

When a republican president is honored, conservatives name an aircraft carrier after him. When a democrat president is honored, liberals have the government pay people not to work.

Karen Harper said...

You might mention that Alabama also has state holidays for General Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a Confederate memorial day. If one small county in state that has state holidays for Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee, chooses to honor Barack Obama, I can't get too upset about it.

Are you as upset about the holidays for Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis?