I sincerely hope that this purported Topeka-Capital Journal article is a hoax… somebody’s very poor idea of a bad joke.

Planning under way for Obama holiday

Plans are being made to promote a national holiday for Barack Obama, who will become the nation’s 44th president when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20.

“Yes We Can” planning rallies will be at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the downtown McDonald’s restaurant, 1100 Kansas Ave., until Jan. 13. The goals are to secure a national holiday in Obama’s honor, to organize celebrations around his inauguration and to celebrate the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12 1809.

Here’s the short version of my response to this. We already have a holiday for Barack Obama. It’s called PRESIDENTS DAY.

This idea approaches criminal stupidity, and no matter how much you may have supported Obama’s candidacy, you should oppose it also. It’s not that I don’t “get” the symbolic importance and historic nature of electing our first president who isn’t a Rich Old White Guy. (ROWG.) I get it. Honestly I do.

The point is, we already have too many damned Federal holidays as it is and I’m always on the lookout to see if we couldn’t combine and reduce a few more. There are all too many days now when I can’t get my mail delivered, have my trash picked up, and I find the neighborhood littered with screaming children who bloody well ought to be in school.

Also, no matter how historic you feel the election was, we have had any number of presidents who were wildly popular in their own time and established admirable legacies which last to this day. Shall we give them all their own separate holidays? Let’s let the Obama administration play out. Something like this, if it is to be considered at all, should properly done by future generations in a posthumous honor after history has had it’s chance to evaluate the full term of his service and his lasting effect on the nation.

And let’s face it… how embarrassed would you be if you did manage to establish this holiday immediately and six years from now Obama got swept up in something like Watergate? (I know… I know… it would never happen. We’ve said that about plenty of politicians. Look how Grant’s presidency turned out and he was a war hero.)

If this story is real – and let’s all hope that it turns out to be a joke – let’s all compose ourselves and step back from the brink, shall we? Thank you. That is all. You may now return to your normal browsing.