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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

A turkey of a White House story

By Ken Herman | Wednesday, November 21, 2007, 08:13 AM

truman.jpg

On the White House website, just above the “Setting the Record Straight” section, yesterday’s Rose Garden event (see below) is referred to as the “60th Annual Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon.”

To kick off the event, President Bush told attendees, “Each of you is taking part in a tradition that goes back to the days of Harry Truman.”

It’s time for some setting the record straight.

Truman, it seems, was more interested in turkey dinner than poultry mercy.

From the Truman Library website: “The library’s staff has found no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, or other contemporary records in our holdings which refer to Truman pardoning a turkey that he received as a gift in 1947, or at any other time during his presidency. Truman sometimes indicated to reporters that the turkeys he received were destined for the family dinner table.”

Gulp.

Closer scrutiny of the White House website shows some careful efforts to avoid the tricky situation. The site also refers to this year’s “60th anniversary of the National Thanksgiving Turkey presentation.” That’s “presentation,” not “pardon.”

“Though live Thanksgiving turkeys have been presented intermittently to presidents since the Lincoln administration, the current ceremony dates to 1947, when the first National Thanksgiving Turkey was presented to President Harry Truman,” it says, making no claim as to the turkey’s fate.

Happy Thanksgiving, anyway.

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