View from the North 40: Pardon me, turkey

The president officially pardoned the turkey again this year, but really, a is that all about? Isn’t it weird to project a sense of humanity onto the animal we traditionally eat this holiday?

Still, year after year, presidents have been issuing official pardons to turkeys that haven’t done a dang thing wrong. Shouldn’t it be called a stay of execution? Even saying they were saved from a lynching would be more accurate than being pardoned.

Not only have those turkeys done no wrong, they were actually bred and trained by the National Turkey Federation to be well-behaved, even with the...