Editorial: Lame duck’s pardoning of turkeys meaningless

Defendant: Turkey. Crime: Being succulent and delicious.
Sentence: Serving one day as honorary grand marshal of the
Disneyland Thanksgiving Day Parade and incarceration in
Frontierland’s turkey house.

President Bush, in a festive waste of time, pardoned two turkeys
in a traditional ceremony last Wednesday at the White House before
an audience of Girl Scouts and the media. The pardoning ceremony is
a presidential tradition that has occurred sporadically since
Abraham Lincoln was in office, and has happened every year since
Harry Truman revived it in 1947.

The turkeys were dubbed “Flyer” and
“Fryer” in an online poll on the White House Web site,
beating out “Corn” and “Copia,”
“Washington” and “Lincoln,”
“Plymouth” and “Rock,” and
“Ben” and “Franklin.”

In his Rose Garden speech, Bush gave the pair of fowl “a
full presidential pardon so they can live out their lives as safe
as can be.”

While this editorial board is all for tradition ““ such as
the celebration of Thanksgiving, with the eating of turkey and
pumpkin pie, the watching of football, and the gathering of family
““ we’re against taking time away from the
nation’s real problems ““ such as the current direction
of the Iraq war and our flailing K-12 education system ““ for
photo opportunities with Midwestern farm animals.

It would be one thing if part of Bush’s campaign platform
in 2004 had been promoting vegetarianism alongside personal liberty
and the global spread of democracy, or if the president spent his
weekends throwing red paint on fur-wearing celebrities.

But in a charming example of holiday hypocrisy, the Bush family
sat down to a Thanksgiving dinner. The menu included cornbread
dressing, whipped maple sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and ““ you
guessed it ““ turkey. Granted, the turkey was free-range, but
it is clear from the fact that it arrived on the table that it did
not live out a full, safe life as Flyer and Fryer will now do. At
Disneyland.

In another stunning example of abusing our sacred turkey-eating
holiday for political benefit, Bush gave phone calls to 10 members
of the U.S. armed forces Thursday to wish them a happy holiday and
thank them for their military service. The phones calls were evenly
split between the five branches of the armed services, and went to
servicemen and servicewomen stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan,
Qatar, Alaska and California, according to The Associated
Press.

While it’s a heartwarming idea that Bush would
individually call you to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving if you were
serving in the Iraq war, the temporary feeling that you’re
special shouldn’t override the fact that you’re serving
in a war for which you have the Bush administration to thank.

Thanksgiving has brought in a bounty of stupid moves by
politicians to garner public favor, particularly from the
president. Pardoning a pair of farm-raised turkeys is not going to
stop anyone from chowing down on drumsticks the following day
(including the president), and calling service members isn’t
going to be seen by anyone as anything but a photo opportunity,
like kissing babies or posing with disabled children.

Let’s get back to reality next year, and have Bush and
Vice President Dick Cheney hunt turkeys instead. At least that
seems to be a little more in keeping with Thanksgiving
tradition.