A Turkey Named Courage.

This is the final paper due in my U.S.Government class this semester...thank goodness this class is over! It was my least favorite class so far out of any I have taken since starting this adventure last year. I am sure if I had a better teacher it would have been far more interesting but the professor I got stuck with was very boring and her grading made it nearly impossible to make an A. I am sure I will be stuck with a B in this class....B= Bummer. Anyway enjoy this last paper...thanks for reading and hopefully I will be able to blog about better stuff during the winter break.

I looked long and hard this week for an article that dealt with the Federal Government and today the Associated Press had as their top story, “President Obama’s first pardon: A turkey called ‘Courage’ Fowl is spared a ‘terrible and delicious fate,’ flown first class to Disneyland., A Presidents first pardon would normally would be big news. However he was pardoning a turkey he called Courage that would have made a great meal as he weighed 45 pounds. Apparently this is a long time tradition dating back to JFK. The article mentions that his daughters were there and that the president was joking about forgoing the tradition and eating his turkey as Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson did. He wished all service members a Happy Thanksgiving and spoke of the honor of being their Commander in Chief. He also spoke about Abraham Lincoln making Thanksgiving a holiday in the midst of the civil war when the future of our Union was doubtful. He mentioned giving thanks for what we have and giving back to those less fortunate. He then pardoned the turkey, Courage and said that he was going to live the rest of his life in Disneyland.
It is hard to form an opinion on such an article as I think it is pretty silly, not only that this was the top news story on every site I looked at but that this goes on at all. I was quite surprised to learn that this has been a time honored tradition since the days of President Kennedy and that President Lincoln also pardoned a turkey, however his turkey was slated for a Christmas meal instead of a Thanksgiving meal. I read several other articles on this subject and it seems that a lot of the facts are mixed up. Some of the articles I read including this one had other presidents as the first to start this tradition. This particular article mentions George H.W. Bush, however, others I read including an article specifically about who the first president was to pardon a turkey clears it all up and gives JFK the honors. I wanted to look more and find out why this started in the first place but then decided it was best left alone. The pickings on the news wire today were pretty slim and I want to chalk it up to the impending Holiday but it really reminds me of why I only look at the news sporadically.