(From White House.gov)
We've come a long way since 11-year-old Tad Lincoln convinced his father to "adopt" a turkey named Jack in 1863.
Today, President Obama pardoned two 20-week-old, 38-pound turkeys named Popcorn and Caramel -- and announced Popcorn as the official "National Thanksgiving Turkey," after the American public weighed in on their favorites via Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
The President noted:
The competition was stiff, but we can officially declare that Popcorn is the winner -- proving that even a turkey with a funny name can find a place in politics. As for Caramel, he’s sticking around, and he’s already busy raising money for his next campaign.
And so, all "Hunger Games" references aside, both turkeys will live. Popcorn and Caramel will spend the rest of their natural days in the historic rolling pastures of Morven Park's Turkey Hill -- located at the home of former Virginia governor Westmoreland Davis in Leesburg, Virginia.
Depending on whom you ask, President Abraham Lincoln was the first to spare a turkey, when his son Tad "adopted" the bird intended for Christmas dinner and named it Jack. As President Clinton noted in a speech in 1997, "President Lincoln had no choice but to give Jack the full run of the White House."
The official annual presentation of a Thanksgiving turkey began under President Harry Truman, but there wouldn't be any official "pardoning" for several decades. According to his presidential library's documents, President Eisenhower, too, appears to have eaten the birds presented to him over the course of his two terms in office.
President Kennedy sent a particularly scrawny turkey back to the farm in 1963, saying "we'll let this one grow." (Not quite the stuff of empathetic pardons.)
It was President Ronald Reagan that issued the first "pardon" on record, when he was presented with a turkey named Charlie in 1987 -- Charlie was thereby sent to a petting zoo -- and President George H.W. Bush made the turkey pardon a permanent fixture in the American presidency.
Since then, pardoned turkeys have been sent to a variety of pastoral American venues -- from Frying Pan Park in Fairfax, Virginia, to the Disneyland Resort in California to Mount Vernon -- the home and estate of President George Washington.
As the President said today, "The Office of the Presidency -- the most powerful position in the world -- brings with it many awesome and solemn responsibilities. This is not one of them."
Popcorn and Caramel might disagree.
____________________
And maybe further evidence of the complexities of criticism of a modern president, Obama's pardon was met by a special interest protest posted on YouTube by PETA:
17 comments:
While PETA may seem to make a compelling argument, it will fall on deaf ears. In my opinion this is a good thing. After all man has been killing and eating animals for thousands of years. And asking the president of the United States to go vegan for thanksgiving is ridiculous.
I read an article, and PETA "saving animals" is generally euthanizing over half of them. So I don't think they should really try this crap.
PETA often takes a very dramatic stance on any issue they can. Obviously this turkey pardon is no exception. I applaud their consistency the cause yet come on, a vegan thanksgiving is very heavy request for even the most animal-friendly family.
A turkey at thanksgiving is an American tradition. We cannot expect the President to please everyone. PETA's request is irrational with no hope for success. Even if the President did change to a vegan dinner, that does not help the turkey situation overall. They need to chill. Come on now. Use the money you made to make that video and put it towards another cause
PETA is being completly irrational!!!! come on you cant expect the president to not eat turkey on thanksgiving, it's a tradition. I understand she is trying to portray a message, but that message could have clearly been brought up in another way. To me she sounds a little unprofessional asking for EVERYONE to eat vegan on thanksgiving is far fetched! I respect anyone and everyone who wants to go this rought. But I can tell you I did not go the vegan rout for thanksgiving.
All I have to say to PETA is lol nice try. There are always people like this in our society that want to get the message out about how animals are treated when they are domesticated. Not to start another argument but domestication has saved and can save many species of animals from extinction. So PETA whether you like it or not, I ate turkey on Thanksgiving, and it was very good.
Although PETA may be right that many turkeys will still be killed this Thanksgiving they cant really expect much else. Not everybody agrees with their opinion to go vegan and there will always be opposers. I think its wrong for them to try to force their ideals on everyone especially since turkey on Thanksgiving has been a tradition for almost everyone that celebrates the holiday.
oAlthough PETA may be right that many turkeys will still be killed this Thanksgiving they cant really expect much else. Not everybody agrees with their opinion to go vegan and there will always be opposers. I think its wrong for them to try to force their ideals on everyone especially since turkey on Thanksgiving has been a tradition for almost everyone that celebrates the holiday.
America is built around so many traditions and one of these is having turkey on Thanksgiving. For PETA to go around telling people this is wrong when it is something so American seems completely unreasonable and unpatriotic. I understand and respect the choice to be vegan but asking the President and an entire nation to join is not realistic or worth the time or money.
Good lord, PETA is HARDLY a reliable "orginazation". They're outlandish and obnoxious ways of "protecting animal rights" while they secretly euthenize the animals that they are supposidly saving, are just completely foolsih.
Telling children that their mother killed bambi and throwing red paint on people to represent the blood of the animals they'd killed, are just some of the ridiculous things that PETA has done and just furthers to discredit them.
PETA had a good idea and then it was just totally mucked up by their ridiculous ways of getting their message across. If you want to eat vegan or vegetarian, I respect that. Go, have some tofurkey for Thanksgiving! I wish you luck! But don't tell me I'm a bad person because I choose to have a big slab of ham on my Thanksgiving plate.
However, for the incident at hand, PETA is living in a fantasy world if they think for one second that Mr. Obama is giving up his gourmet Thanksgiving turkey and ham. Lord knows I wouldn't!
I don't think we should stop the tradition of eating turkey on Thanksgiving, because it's the way we celebrate Thanksgiving, and it's fun to have turkey with families and friends. Also, turkeys are heather than some other kinds of meat. BUT! The way that turkeys get killed sounds awful!
PETA reacts too strongly to anything relating to animals, such as the "I'd Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur" campaign. The most dramatic stance does not always win support, and in this case it just makes PETA seem ridiculous. A vegan Thanksgiving would be extremely un-American. Rather than suggesting this idea, they could encourage other healthy food ideas and try to promote vegetarianism gradually.
In my opinion, PETA would be more powerful if they took a less extreme position. You hear them and you think "wow, these people are humorless and kind of crazy", and you dismiss everything that they say. But if they said things that were a bit more reasonable, it would be easier to think about doing something. It would be more effective for PETA to fight for conditions to, for example, not slit the turkey's throats while they are hanging upside down and still conscious. That is a reasonable thing to argue for. But urging everyone to have a vegan Thanksgiving is a bit extreme in my opinion.
PETA has the right to freedom of speech so they can say whatever they want. They can even ask the president to go vegan. Parts of their argument are very well thought out; however I respectfully disagree with all of it. It's completely ridiculous to ask the president, a person who represents America, to give up such a long-held American tradition.
I applaud PETA for sticking with their beliefs and creating an argument parallel to their values. However, this is beyond ridiculous to ask the President to have a vegan dinner for thanksgiving. I get that it would be interesting and would make a stance but it really won't change anything. It would be more realistic and would sound a lot less crazier if they talked about the conditions of the turkeys or something of that sort.
I think that PETA's cause is a noble one and that their statement is well meant. However, I do not think it is plausible for them to believe that they will be able to stop a well loved tradition such as that as pardoning the turkey. Being a vegetarian or a vegan is a personal choice, and all the more power to those who decide to live that life. But PETA cannot possibly believe that they will be able to stop a McDonald's-hamburger-loving country from eating meat just by stopping the pardoning of the turkey. That being said the meat industry in America is in an awful state and does commit atrocious acts against animals. Something does need to be done about it, but not pardoning the turkey is not that something.
I am a vegetarian, and I've had a vegan/vegetarian Thanksgiving for as long as I've remembered. However, even I think that PETA's request is far too much to ask. Thanksgiving is a tradition that over half of the Americans will celebrate, and unless someone is honestly taking the stance of a vegan ideology the vegan Thanksgiving is pointless. What is that even trying to say? A family that eats meat the other 364 days a year, doesn't for one? That isn't a huge sacrifice. It makes no sense.
Post a Comment