Terminate the Turkey... with Extreme Prejudice

Am I the only person who finds it beyond laughable and truly dreadful watching George W. "pardoning" a turkey before Thanksgiving.  Could the guy be once again any more out of touch?  Does he expect that anybody believes that down in Crawford the Bush clan will be serving Tofurkey?  He unleashed Cheney this week to shore up the base, and so I wonder if this gesture is his way of concurrently pandering to the extreme vegan left?  I mean, the guy hasn't met a natural resource, be it plant, mineral or animal, that he wouldn't sooner carve up and feed to whomever paid him the most for it, all other considerations be damned.  In truth, I'm a little surprised that W. didn't inoculate the bird from avian flu after he commuted its sentence, which would actually have been a more meaningful message than sparing the turkey.

I imagine that the irony of saving the life of old Marshmallow is not lost on Cindy Sheehan -- who will be joining the president in Texas this Thanksgiving though not at his table, naturally, lest it make her nauseous -- that the president would save the life of single bird in a meaningless gesture while committing many more young humans to death, injury and trauma for a cause that nobody can believe in anymore, let alone even articulate.

I know this annual turkey clemency is a presidential tradition, but so is serving the interests of the majority of Americans by protecting the lives of its sons and daughters by not needlessly placing them in harms way... and by serving Turkey on Thanksgiving.