Pardoning turkeys is stupid. So, why not have fun with it?
President Obama joked Wednesday about his executive actions giving legal status to as many as five million undocumented immigrants, saying his Thanksgiving pardon of a turkey would doubtlessly be criticized as “amnesty.”
Obama said the pardon of a turkey named Cheese would be the “most talked about executive action this month” and one that’s “fully within my legal authority.”
“I know some will call this amnesty, but don’t worry, there is plenty of turkey to go around,” he said.
Maybe Trey Gowdy can form a investigative committee to subpoena everyone involved in this blatant power grab.
But if that turkey was born here there really is no enlargement of executive power.
I cry fowl.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/huppke/ct-talk-huppke-turkey-pardon-20141124-story.html
I hope I have access to Ogobblecare, b/c laughing too much is bad for the health
I love this.
BTW, when did Sasha Obama get to be almost as tall as Malia!
The Obama Girls Could Not Be More Bored By Their Dad’s Jokes
http://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/obama-dad-jokes via @davidmackau @buzzfeednews
What’s with that last picture with the two girls? I know what those looks mean between two brothers. They mean the older brother is going to have some fun arm twisting or noogie rubbing and the younger brother knows it. But does it mean the same with girls?
yes it does.
I am the oldest of 5 girls and I’ve seen those looks exchanged between us countless times.
Usually it’s when I said something particulary snarky/sarcastic towards my lil sister and her reaction was usually “whatever”.
That is a “whatever” look if I ever saw one. And Malia is looking at Sasha a “what” type of smile.
Malia is still a good half a head taller than Sasha, but she may have reached her full height and is now giving Sasha time to catch up.
Cool that they can publicly respond like normal teens when Dad is acting corny.
He should have brought out turkeys named Harry and Mitch, then only pardoned Harry and sent Mitch off to be slaughtered.
It should be Harry’s neck.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if the American people had treated Obama with respect, even just a little bit. I wish I could send him a message to thank him for trying over and over again to win over the American populace and accomplish what the country needed. He wanted what is best for us, he tried to make it happen, but all he met was resistance, racist attacks, and relentless negative responses to every idea he put forth.
Shame on us for wasting the perfect chance to do good things. Obama deserved better than us. He could have really been a fantastic leader, but the American people were too stubborn and stupid to let him be great.
I would tell him I’m sorry.
Over half of US voters treated him with enough respect to elect him twice. A glass more than half full.
I would thank him for being the best President in my 61 year years, despite all the obstacles and hateful rhetoric, and for being the most decent man who has served in that position.
Has someone been watching old West Wing box sets?
Pardoning turkeys is stupid.
Well, yes. But women like it.
Finally a metaphor of bipartisanship in America: pardoning white turkeys named Cheese, while the youth look side-eye at the ridiculousness of the ritual and the lame jokes (the universal observation of teenagers) that their father makes to elide the real issue.
Being a dad is hard enough. Being the Dad-in-Chief under the glare of a hostile media is even harder. Having to act dignified and watch what you say while performing one of the most ridiculous acts of Presidential protocol even more difficult.
Would have loved to see what Joe Biden could have made of it in role of VP. Well, maybe there will be some foreign negotiations more important than turkeys next year and Joe will get his chance.
This is a publicity stunt of the National Turkey Federation (yes, that’s what the lobby is called-truth in advertising) and the Poultry and Egg Board. They first pulled this stunt in 1947, the year the National Security Act of 1947 was passed (and that has turned out to be a real turkey), when Harry Truman was President. No one saw the turkey as anything other than the White House meal.
Ronald Reagan was the animal rights activist who first pardoned the turkey and sent Charlie to a petting zoo. The joking reference the Gipper made was to the question of whether he would pardon Oliver North.
One of the things that happens with institutions is that they get encrusted with spurious rituals and formal obligations.
Might it be time to point out that K Street and instituitons like the National Turkey Federation are the real turkeys in Washington.
“Having a little fun” has gotten so serious that it has produced the competition between Sasha and Malia to see who breaks decorum and laughs at the whole performance first. Their discipline was admirable and they made it through with the media only noting their side-eye looks.
No dad can ask more than that of his kids, to maintain seriousness during the pardoning of a white turkey.
Now can we scotch the turkee trying to buy influence at the White House. And the tree-growers association’s attempt to deliver the biggest ever Christmas tree for the National Christmas Tree. And all the other Presidential gratuities presented by this and that association that clutter up the Smithsonian and National Archives.
Benjamin Franklin thought the symbol of the United States of America should be the turkey–not this industry-bred type but the wild turkey. Think what that would have done to our military symbols.
I had a neighbor in Virginia who was partial to Wild Turkey. He was from an old Virginia working family and hated Viginia Gentleman.
How did this country manage to exist without a National Christmas Tree until 1923? Then environmentalists got into the act and demanded a living tree. That proved problematical for the National Park Service to maintain. So, the living tree was junked in 1954.
There wasn’t even an “official” White House Christmas tree until 1929. (Now that was good timing for the nation to take its mind off empty bellies.) Then over time one tree wasn’t good enough. If nothing else, Americans love excess. The WH now gets decked out like a theme park – twenty-seven or more large cut and decorated trees and trimmings everywhere. All quite fitting for an economy so heavily dependent on Christmas spending.
No wonder people think this is a “Christian” nation – kids get the best gifts not for their birthdays but the designated birthday of some guy that may have lived 2,000 years ago. And for little kids the gifts come from an imaginary guy that flies through the sky once a year. Christmas in the USA has become a horrible perversion of a once modest German tradition, and reinforces a feast or famine economic mindset.
What is very interesting is to map the four different national liturgical years:
The national holidays: MLK, Presidents, Memorial, 4th of July, Labor, Veterans, Thanksgiving
The Christian holidays: Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas’
The merchant holidays: New Years, Valentines Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas (Santa Claus).
The school holidays: Beginning of school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas (Santa Claus), Beginning of second semester, Presidents Day/Valentines Day/Black History Month, St. Patrick’s Day, April Fools Day, Easter, May Day (the flower one), End of school.
Each are associated with different and contradictory narratives and more and more elaborate symbols–art, music, drama — encrusting ever more American tradition. The whole traditional vehicle now has become overloaded.
How about we junk the liturgical and Americana calendars and just go with the two equinoxes and two solstices, one holiday in between each of those (May day would be nice for one and Thanksgiving nice for another one, the other two could be important dead people’s day and private dead people’s day), keep New Year’s as the one secular calendar holiday, and set the summer solstice as a two day holiday.
Can I still have a wild drunken orgy on the Autumnal equinox as my (very distant) ancestors did? Those guys really knew how to party.