PARDON THE TURKEY

A recent TV interview of Sarah Palin got me to thinking about turkeys.

You probably saw the spot. She pardoned a Thanksgiving turkey at a slaughterhouse, and continued giving an interview while other "unpardoned" turkeys in full view behind her were losing their heads.

Surreal.

What is this pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey all about anyway?

Isn’t it just more evidence of the duplicity of our elected officials? They pardon a turkey for show but still eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

Just once I’d like to see a President or Governor pardon the turkey and then go home and eat veggie burgers.

How did this turkey pardoning tradition start?

Apparently, the National Turkey Federation first presented a Christmas turkey to Harry Truman in 1947. He didn’t pardon the bird, however. He talked about how good it would look on the dinner table.

Eisenhower, too, ate the birds that he was presented in his two terms.

When Kennedy received a Thanksgiving turkey in 1963, he didn’t mention pardoning it, he simply said "Let’s just keep him." Seems it was the press that claimed the bird had been "pardoned."

Ronald Reagan mentioned the word "pardon," but it was to deflect the press’s questions about pardoning Oliver North--saying that if the turkey wasn’t already headed to the petting farm, he would pardon it.

It seems the first president to actually pardon the gift turkey was George Bush in 1989. He proclaimed that he was officially giving the bird a "presidential pardon."

Unfortunately, the issuing of executive pardons for turkeys has been a grand presidential tradition ever since.

The pardon doesn’t mean much. Yes, the turkey gets the honor of riding in a Disney Thanksgiving Day parade, but because commercially raised turkeys get too big for their frames and have weakened immune systems, they seldom live more than a year after their reprieve.

So if you’re reading this, President-elect Obama, as one of your three hundred million
presidential advisors, I would urge you to please accept the gift turkey gracefully. Then send it off to the Disney parade, the petting zoo, or even the White House kitchen, but please dispense with the phony "pardon."

Enough already.