Warning: If you are sensitive to seeing animals killed, do not watch this video. The video at the bottom of the post has the turkeys blurred out as they’re being slaughtered. This one does not.
Sarah Palin did an interview after pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving at an Alaskan turkey farm. She talked in her general, hokey way about campaigning and her work as the governor of Alaska now that she’s back in office. The only difference between this interview and the other moments when she’s been taped talking about politics in her chatty way is that there were turkeys getting pushed head first into what’s called a “killing cone” directly behind her, their legs kicking and struggling as they were slaughtered.
Palin pre-approved her appearance in front of the turkeys being killed. Her representative told MSNBC that she was asked if she could be filmed in front of the turkey killing scene and she said “no worries.”
At the end of the interview she talked about how great it was to be there. There was literally a turkey in its last moments right behind her as she said how much fun it was.
Calls it fun as the turkeys are getting killed right behind her
“This was neat. I was happy to get invited to participate in this. You need a little bit of levity in this job… It’s nice to get out and do something to promote a local business and to just participate in something that isn’t so heavy handed politics that invite criticism. Certainly we’ll even invite criticism for doing this too, but at least this was fun.”
In our society we’re disconnected from the realties of how meat gets on the table. Many meat-eating people find it disconcerting to be around animals getting killed - even animals they would gladly consume once they’re converted to food. I eat meat pretty much every day, and if I lived a century ago I probably would have had to kill and pluck the chickens that my family eats. I don’t think I would have considered it “fun” though, just necessary.
Do you think she did it for publicity or that she just went along with the interview request, completely oblivious to the controversy? It looks to me like she knows exactly what she’s doing and is getting a huge kick out of it. She’s certainly getting enough attention for it. She enjoys hunting so at least she’s consistent.
Here’s MSNBC’s coverage of her pardon and the subsequent interview. The turkeys are blurred out in this one.
As if life isn't depressing enough for Hillary Clinton right now, when everyone from the 
The GOP flack who prepped Sarah Palin for various public appearances is stepping up to say that the Alaskan governor isn't quite as dumb as angry McCain aides are trying to paint her. Republican and former Bush executive secretary of the National Security Council Steve Biegun has gotten in touch with National Review editor/wonderboy Rich Lowry to redeem the former vice presidential candidate by repudiating recent claims she has no idea who's in NAFTA and thinks Africa's a country. He calls the allegations "absurd," while managing to note that she had a "steep learning curve on foreign issues," as Lowry formulates it. It's nice someone is stepping out on Sarah's behalf, but is this half-hearted defense simply part of the larger scheme to discredit her for 2012?
Ok, surely you've seen this somewhere today, right? Sarah Palin doodled on some paper back in 1996 when she was deciding to run for mayor and basically she is a 10-year-old girl. Or was still a 10-year-old girl in 1996. Now, adjusting for her slow development, she's clearly in her "bitchy teenager" stage which is why she keeps telling John McCain she wants to go to Michigan and disobeying his strict order not to bring up Jerimiah Wright all the time. [
For American presidential campaigns, the run-up to any televised debate is nothing so much as an exercise in managing expectations. Your opponent is fearsome and will probably crush you. Your own candidate will be lucky to form a single coherent sentence. Then, after the debate, you can spin a weak performance as a come-from-behind victory. In this little game of flackery, Sarah Palin could not be better positioned for tonight's face-off against Joe Biden. The Republican vice presidential nominee is up against a respected lion of the senate. Severe economic anxiety has put her ticket 
So. That Couric interview? Didn't seem to instill much confidence in anyone that we're dealing with anything other than a stunt that's gone horribly awry, like suspending a campaign to fix the economy. Like, people who thought she was dumb are shocked at just how dumb. (Or incurious, whatever you want to call it! You can't be a complete idiot and be a successful politician in Alaska, after all.) (That was 
This is University of Tennessee student David Kernell, the Democratic state senator's son who reportedly accessed Sarah Palin's email account by 
So we're still getting 