President Obama, the turkeys should be pardoning us

Long ago, another president – Abraham Lincoln – is said to have visited a prison with the intention of pardoning just one death-row inmate. 

As Lincoln strode through the dank corridors, many begged for mercy.  When Lincoln asked why they were there, each categorically denied deserving such a punishment.  Each said that their sentencing had been a horrible mistake.  That is, all except one.

This one exceptional prisoner admitted to having committed a hideous crime, and added that he would regret it for the rest of his waning days.  It was that prisoner whom Lincoln chose.  When the others demanded to know why he was pardoning the only guilty one amongst them, Lincoln explained that it is only the guilty who need pardoning.

Using this logic, turkeys should be pardoning humans, and not the other way around.  Turkeys have been nothing but decent to people – keeping the creepy-crawly slug population in check for centuries.  And what were they given as thanks?  Nothing but Thanksgiving.

This is just plain injustice.  Deep down in their respective guts, citizens of America know it.  That is why comments regarding Obama’s well-publicized pardons of turkeys Apple and Cider included these:

Obama pardons this turkey but in a move that can only be

described as hypocritical will be eating turkey on Thanksgiving.

I bet that guilty people on death row find stories like this to be

amusing.

Stop this tradition America.  It’s not funny and it’s in poor

taste to joke about sparing a turkey’s life when the reference

is to sparing a human’s life.  Capital punishment is considered

barbaric in the civilized world.

In Lincoln’s case, the comments were even more to the point.  His former bodyguard noted that – although Lincoln had been able to grant many a pardon – he, like Christ, was unable to spare himself.

Resources

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/24/barack-obama-pardons-nati_n_788066.html#s191437

http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=226&subjectID=3

Copyright November 25, 2010 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved