why is pardoning turkeys such a big fucking deal. I hope Donald doesn't take that route.
Be careful what you ask for:
President Harry S. Truman receiving a non-pardoned Thanksgiving turkey (this one a Bronze) from members of the Poultry and Egg National Board and other representatives of the turkey industry, outside the White House on November 16, 1949.
On various occasions, turkeys had been donated to the President as gifts from private citizens. Henry Vose, a Rhode Island turkey farmer, presented a turkey to the President each year from 1873 until his death in 1913.[2]
The official presentation of a turkey to the President each year began in 1947 under President Harry Truman, and many sources erroneously attribute the origin of the turkey pardon to Truman. However, the Truman Library says that no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs or other contemporary records are known to exist that specify that he ever "pardoned" a turkey; there are records that he publicly admitted to eating at least some of them.[1][3] The Eisenhower Presidential Library says documents in their collection reveal that President Dwight Eisenhower ate the birds presented to him during his two terms. President John F. Kennedy spontaneously spared a turkey on November 18, 1963, just four days before his assassination. The bird was wearing a sign reading, "Good Eating Mr. President." Kennedy returned the massive 55-pound turkey to the farm, saying "we'll let this one grow."[4] At least one headline in the Los Angeles Times referred to it as a pardon, but Kennedy did not refer to it as such.[5] Likewise, Richard Nixon also spared some of the turkeys given to him during his time as President.[6]
The first President on record issuing a "pardon" to his turkey was Ronald Reagan, who pardoned a turkey named Charlie and sent him to a petting zoo in 1987. The reference to it being a pardon was in response to criticism over the Iran-Contra affair, in which Reagan had been questioned on whether or not he would consider pardoning Oliver North (who had yet to be tried for his involvement in the affair); Reagan conjured the turkey pardon as a joke to deflect those questions.[1][7] Reagan did not pardon a turkey in his final year as President in 1988, but his successor, George H. W. Bush, instituted the turkey pardon as a permanent part of the presentation beginning his first year in office, 1989, in response to the protests of animal rights activists.[2] Since then, at least one of the turkeys presented to the President has been taken to a farm where it will live out the rest of its natural life. For many years the turkeys were sent to Frying Pan Farm Park in Fairfax County, Virginia. From 2005 to 2009, the pardoned turkeys were sent to either the Disneyland Resort in California or the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, where they served as the honorary grand marshals of Disney's Thanksgiving Day Parade. In 2010, 2011 and 2012,[8] the turkeys were sent to live at Mount Vernon, the estate and home of George Washington; Mount Vernon stopped displaying and accepting the turkeys due to the fact that they violated the estate's policy of maintaining its own historical accuracy (Washington never farmed turkeys). The 2013, 2014 and 2015 turkeys were sent to Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia, the estate of former Virginia governor (and prolific turkey farmer) Westmoreland Davis.[9] Virginia Polytechnic Institute will house the 2016 pardoned turkey.
