Here’s Sarah Palin, being interviewed outside a turkey farm in Alaska after ceremonially “pardoning” a turkey. While she talks to the camera, a farmhand puts several birds througha “killing cone” — the consolation prize for not being on the Governor’s “pardon” list. As a gobbler literally bleeds to death behind her, Palin says:
“This was neat. I was happy to get invited to participate in this. You need a little bit of levity in this job … It’s nice to get out and do something to promote a local business and to just participate in something that isn’t so heavy handed politics that invite criticism. Certainly we’ll even invite criticism for doing this too, but at least this was fun.”
Or … is this the hypocrisy? Here’s MSNBC’s slant on the episode. They actually blurred out the turkey’s feet so sensitive viewers, I suppose, would imagine the worst.
This wasn’t gory stuff, folks. No blood spurting. No wild squawking of final breaths. Just a turkey being slaughtered in what looks to me to be a pretty humane fashion.
Oh, wait. It was David Shuster sitting in for Keith Overbite on MSNBC. Now it all makes sense.
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What??!!!
There’s animals in McDonald’s? You’ve gotta’ be kidding me!
I’m laughing my arse off… that’s brilliant!
I love how this is considered “earth shattering,” and I also love all the different headlines that flash across as she’s talking. Is there really nothing more interesting going on than this? Good job MSNBC
What a dope. She couldn’t find a better place to do an interview? If you can put it between two slices of bread I’ll eat it. I completely believe in the wholesale slaughter of all animals and this seems like a bad idea. Hey Sarah wanna friendly new image? Next time do an interview while shotgunning Labrador Retriever puppies and stomping on kitten faces.
Here’s the greatest turkey giveaway in the history of the universe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iafzqOCaxA4
Uhh, Pasta, she didn’t choose the spot to shoot the interview the reporter did. I am sure he made sure to position her so he could get the whole incident into the shot. After all if he was really that concerned about the turkeys he would have stopped the interview and shifted the focus. But no, this is how the MSM trashes a person they know has a chance to evict the BO from the White House in 2012.
It is also a prime example of how stupid Americans are if they think the turkeys in thier tables were grown in vats and not a living animal at some point.
Yes, Aleric. Palin is such a threat to your President-Elect that THEY planned Turkeygate to discredit her. Damn the dasterdly liberal media!!! *shakes fist*
At the end of the MSNBC piece, Shuster says that their crew asked Palin if she minded that particular setup & background, and she apparently said “no worries.”
All I’m saying is, if she was thinking she would have opted for a better place. Whats the matter? Alaska isn’t scenic enough to find a nice mountain backdrop or something? Don’t give MSNBC and all 12 of it’s viewers more ammunition than they need.
Well, I guess I’m not PETA material.
My first thought was that the farm had a pretty cool setup for holding the bird still.
And then I wondered if I could rig up somethin’ like that the next time my 11 year old mouths off.
Oops, it seems I’m not Amnesty International material either.
It seems to me that she jsut didn’t give a damn what people make of it. You have to admire that a little. Are we all so soft that we can’t handle seeing the truth about the food we eat?
I know I am.
Exactly. This is how food is made. More specifically, this is how food is made _cheaply_ enough that your peasant ass can afford to eat something besides boiled porridge and turnips.
And as for the whole turkey pardon thing, it’s just a long-standing goofy tradition, like pretending a groundhog can predict the weather.
They didn’t plan it. They’re just eager to use it.
I think the wrong turkey was put in the cone….
I would love to see a President or a Governor take one of those turkeys and chop its head off. And then I’d like to see it served up for Thanksgiving Dinner. And maybe invite a few Indians over and later smoke a peace pipe.
If they’re going to pardon one turkey, why not pardon all of them? And if they pardon all the turkeys, why not pardon the chickens and the cattle and the pigs? And if they’re going to pardon animals, why not the vegetables?
So do I.
If this ticks off PETA, I’m going to set up the Palin 2012 exploratory committee tomorrow.
“Certainly we’ll even invite criticism for doing this too, but at least this was fun.” — Sarah Palin
She knows who she is and how people will react. And she’s right. But she has no problem with a dead bird. I fail to see the problem here. She pardons a turkey and another one dies? Hell, let’s face it, if times get tough the pardoned turkey will be somebody’s dinner too.
That’s part of the problem with urbanization, people go to the supermarket and see chicken cutlets, deboned, defeathered, deblooded and then get squeamish when they find out what you have to do to get it like that. Living in a big city (and loving it) let me say thank you to all the people who get their hands bloody slaughtering cows and chickens and the like so that I don’t starve.
Rocko hit the nail squarely on the head. I remember a very surreal moment a few months into my first tour in Afghanistan that really hammered this home. We had set up a forward firing base in a small village, and over a week or so we had gotten pretty comfortable with the locals. A few of the older men in the village would hang around with us in our off time and tell us stories about fighting the Soviets in the 80’s. One night we shared some MREs with them, and according to local tradition, they demanded that they be allowed to provide us dinner the next night to satisfy their honor.
We come in off patrol just in time to see them ‘preparing’ for the night’s festivities – and I don’t think I’ve ever seen greener faces. Keep in mind these are all Marines who have been in combat. They’ve seen plenty of dead bodies, both theirs and ours. But the sight of a goat being strung up by it’s hind legs and butchered though… I don’t think most of them ate for days. Me? I have Tennessee backwoodsmen in my family, so I hung around and had some goat – which despite being a little stringy, was actually passable. But the looks on those Afghan’s faces… they just could not grasp how a bunch of soldiers could be phased by dinner.
glad you guys posted this! i just think its um.. odd that they had the woman who shoots and eats moose and shoots wolves from helicopters pardon a turkey. i mean, her? really? no matter what you think of her you gotta admit.. its an odd choice. but anyway as much as i want to believe she didn’t know that was going on behind her, i just can’t!
I think the bigger issue here is that she’s drinking her coffee out of a disposable cup, why wont she think of the environment?????
Didn’t it occur to any of her handlers that the warm fuzzy feelings they’re trying to generate by her ‘pardoning’ a turkey would be negated by having that scene in the background?
And yeah, we all ‘get’ that the meat neatly wrapped in cellophane in the store comes from real, live animals. But thanks for explaining that again, ad nauseum.
I don’t see it as an odd choice. Government officials pardon birds all the time (whether it’s a stupid/silly tradition is a whole different matter)… you gotta admit that this is a little less harmful that some of the real pardons President Clinton pushed through. *cough*
I think I’m more confused by why the farm continued to slaughter while the interview took place?? The whole thing seems weird to me… all I know for sure is that MSNBC is blowing something out of proportion, yet again.
I don’t see the problem with this other than unintentional humor.
It would have been bad if the pardoned turkey had been slaughtered for the camera, but I find it offensive that they blurred out the gory bits. To hell with “sensitive” viewers. This is where our meat comes from. Part of appreciating what’s on your plate is knowing how it gets there.
I think Rocko said it better than I could have, though.
Sorry to be the voice of (somewhat bemused) reason here, but . . . “turkey pardoning” is not exactly a new concept, nor did it originate with Gov. Palin. I have heard of this tradition before, most notably in the “Turkey Presentation” at the White House where the president pardons a turkey.
The action itself, arbitrarily picking one turkey while the rest get butchered, is not specifically hypocritical. Just sounds like your average nonsense we Americans go for around holidays. Aw, shoot–humans in general love nonsense around the holidays! Aw, shoot, just eat your turkey.
A basic description of this tradition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Thanksgiving_Turkey_Presentation
A photo-essay of Executive turkey pardoning through the years:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/thanksgiving/photoessay/index.html
Cute story about President Lincoln saving a turkey:
http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln65.html
That turkey’s lawyer was Greg Craig.
Sarah Palin has just apologized!
She has also promised that next year she plans to visit an abortion clinic and pardon one about-to-be-exterminated fetus and give her interview in front of the doctor doing D & C’s.
She hopes that will make liberals less sad about about all the poor turkeys.
Personally, MY favorite thing about the whole media-op is that she’s paying lip-service to “fiscal responsibility” and “promoting local business” whilst wearing a Burberry scarf & holding a Starbucks coffee…
Where do you think all those turkeys come from that almost every American will be eating on Thursday? Yes, they have to be slaughtered. Oh, my. Just like every other animal as in chicken, hog, and cow. So out of touch and anxious to criticize Sarah Palin for something yet again. How out of touch with reality.
I don’t know if it’s from growing up surrounded by farms where livestocks are raised (and butchered) for eating and I’m just jaded, but I really don’t see what the big deal is. What ARE we supposed to do with turkeys, cows, chickens, (insert other animals raised for food/products) otherwise? Keep them as pets? Let them roam free in the wild? The PETA people who live in big cities wouldn’t have the “wild” cows roaming about their yards and trashing who knows what… people in rural areas would (which explains PETA’s lack of concern I guess). Have any of you ever seen how fast a cow can run? Put it this way, when it runs after you, you never knew you could run so fast!
I hate the thought of killing anything, but living where I live, I have to be practical and it’s also what earns money for a lot of people where I live. Humans (esp me LOL) need meat to survive. My wool sweaters, down-feather stuffed coat, and fur-lined hats keep me warm in the winter. The clothes I wear are also probably made by little kids or adults working for pennies overseas (yet no one seems to be too concerned for that, it’s all poooooooor widdle animals, raised for food). Getting from Point A to Point B isn’t always pretty, but that’s just the way it goes.
Bruce just earned the Post of the Day Award.
From Entertainment Tonight”
“There’s a new flap involving Sarah Palin: In honor of Thanksgiving, she pardoned one turkey while other birds met their demise right behind her. Now the former VP hopeful’s rep is speaking out to ET about the turkey pardon-gone-wrong!
“The [Alaska] governor did not know it was going on behind her,” Palin’s spokesperson tells ET of the reportedly grisly scene at Triple D Farm & Hatchery outside Wasilla. Cameras captured Palin extending the annual Thanksgiving pardon to one turkey while a farm hand slaughtered the bird’s feathered friends in the background.
Palin’s spokesperson tells ET the bird butchering wasn’t going on when the shot was set up, and a cameraman “ignored” the governor’s staff’s request to remove the graphic sight once cameras were rolling.
“We’re unhappy about it and the station is not happy either,” Palin’s rep tells ET, adding, “this was an attempt to lighten up and do something non-controversial.”
Er…if they so objected to the backdrop, the aides couldn’t have stopped the interview?
Seems that once again she has made turkeys out of the MSM.
We get it, PJ. You do realize you don’t have to hate her anymore for at least another 3.5 years, right?
Simon, Palin should make like the Rolling Stones song…Just Fade Away.
Don’t tell me, tell MSNBC. Tell everybody else who’s making a big deal out of this. Unless you think the governor of a state shouldn’t talk to the local news.
PJ … still bitterly clinging to hist anti-Palin bigotry. Pathological hatred of “snowbillies” is kind of funny coming from the post-racial crowd.
Admit it. You hate her because she is white.
C’mon, Palin knew full well what she was doing. The woman is a full fledged ham.
I don’t think that’s the only reason PJ hates her.
re: Sybil Disobedient: “Personally, MY favorite thing about the whole media-op is that she’s paying lip-service to “fiscal responsibility” and “promoting local business” whilst wearing a Burberry scarf & holding a Starbucks coffee…”
Oh noes!!! Palin killz wittle baby burberries wif ak47 n helicoptr gun ship!!! Den she skinz dem ALIVE wif a big nife to make her evil burberry scarf!!!!!
Let me preface my question by saying that this is actually NOT an attempt at a lame joke.
What did the turkey do that it needs to be ‘pardoned’?
Murder Most Fowl.