Here’s an extra serving of hypocrisy for your Thanksgiving dinner.
I think we’re all familiar with the big, flashy show that the White House puts on every year when the president pardons his Thanksgiving turkey. In a forced public display of American “mercy,” the administration trots out a big fat bird in front of a bunch of cameras, the president makes some funny remarks about democracy and Thanksgiving, and then the bird — this is key — doesn’t get its head chopped off.
Right?
Think again. Last year, the president pardoned not one but two turkeys on Nov. 22. The next day he was served turkey as part of his Thanksgiving meal, according to White House documents obtained by TPMmuckraker.
That’s right: the menu for the Bush Thanksgiving dinner on Nov. 23, 2005, lists “Herbed Stuffed Roasted Free Range Turkey” as its main course.
So maybe “Marshmallow” and “Yam” — the pardoned turkeys — didn’t get the axe. But some poor bastards did. Is that what we’re calling mercy these days? The guilty go free (I assume they were guilty, or else why would they need pardoning), while innocent victims pay the price for their crimes?
It’s not clear how long presidents have been pulling this morbid presidential ploy; the Bush White House’s Web site appears to have been scrubbed of previous years’ Thanksgiving menus. But it’s probably safe to assume that it predates the Bush 43 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two-faced tradition has been a dark shadow lurking behind presidential turkey pardonings since Harry Truman began the practice nearly 60 years ago.
If this is how they treat the turkeys when the country’s distracted, one can only imagine what they’re doing to the vegetables.
