http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/18820A Turkey By Any Other Description - Is Still the Governor of Alaska
by Walter Brasch | November 22, 2008 - 10:06am
snip//
And now comes a turkey disguised as a human. While most turkeys might be offended at the comparison, "turkey" might be the best way to describe Gov. Sarah Palin.
The former Republican VP nominee, at home in Wasilla, Alaska, went to the Triple-D farm, Thursday, accompanied by a willing press corps. There, she declared, apparently in all sincerity and unaware of the great irony, "I, Governor Sarah Palin, friend to all creatures great and small." Yes, the same Sarah Palin who recently cooked moose chili while being interviewed on TV, who regularly kills animals, who approves the killing of wolf pups in their dens, who sees nothing wrong with violating every "fair chase" rule of hunting by encouraging aerial hunting. That Sarah Palin.
But, her "pardon" actually gets even more outrageous. She said she was pardoning the turkey because it was almost the national bird, that "it is not at all clear that this turkey even had a trial, let alone a fair trial by a jury of his or her peers," and that Alaska doesn't have a death penalty. So far, except for her squeaky unmodulated voice and lack of complete sentences, combined with the chortle her line about "friend of all creatures" must have provoked, no harm no foul.
And then she walked outside the pen into the fresh air and sunlight. While a KTUU-TV reporter interviewed her about returning to Alaska, behind the governor, and clearly visible to the camera, a worker was feeding turkeys into a metal funnel grinder, and grinning at the TV camera. The videographer told Palin what was happening behind her shoulder; her response was "No worries," as she continued the three-minute interview, upstaged the entire time by the worker and the slaughter.
During the interview, she explained she went to the Triple-D farm to help promote local business, and because, "You need a little bit of levity in this job." Near the end of the interview, she acknowledged she was a controversial figure, and threw out an off-hand comment about the work being done behind her: "Certainly we'll probably invite criticism for even doing this too but at least this was fun." It certainly wasn't "fun" for the turkeys.
Although most Americans have no problem with eating meat, the scene that Sarah Palin willingly became a part showed not just ineptness but insensitivity.
"The word 'turkey,'" said Sarah Palin, is "considered a term of endearment in casual conversation." There is no way that referring to Sarah Palin as a turkey can be misconstrued to be a "term of endearment."