The George Bush ‘fake’ Turkey story rides again
EVERY Thanksgiving Anorak takes a look to see if anyone is still talking about President George Bush feeding a huge plastic turkey to US forces. The turkey was real.
The story began in 2003, when George Bush went from Texas to surprise the US troops serving in Iraq. In Baghdad, Bush gamefully fed the soldiers and posed for the for cameras carrying a big turkey, a real turkey dinner that sits on display in the mess hall. Someone, possibly Mike Allen in the Washington Post, suggested it was a fake. And with that the story ran around the world, used as a sign to show that Bush was wrong ‘un and a faker.
Many have regretted the error, but some, like the Guardian’s Mark Lawson, carry on denying the truth.
In “Stuffed by a plastic turkey” Lawson wrote (still on the paper’s site):
In a revelation certain to be taught at schools of democracy and journalism for years to come, it has been revealed that the apparently appetising turkey that President Bush carried towards beaming troops last week in Baghdad had been genetically modified to a degree that would lead even the most profit-hungry farmers to protest. The bird was the kind of model used by butchers and Hollywood set-dressers… the affair of the plastic turkey can only be attributed to insecurity…The president seems to have entered a phase of gesture politics, and the gestures are those of a man who, while still swimming vigorously, has suddenly come to accept the possibility of drowning…Whatever the details, the message is clear. Though he still lacks anything as pesky as a plausible Democrat opponent, Dubya is starting to fear that his administration may become the second one-term turkey served up by the Bush dynasty.
The fakery continues this year in Minnesota’s Moose Lake Star Gazette. A Wick Fisher writes:
I remember the morning of Thanksgiving 2003 watching President Bush on television. He was somewhere in Iraq wearing an Army jacket and standing in front of a plate of turkey. He was living the illusion of “mission accomplished” and the turkey was wearing the illusion of being a real turkey. The golden brown turkey with a bunch of grapes and all of the trimmings were actually plastic. If we are constantly getting bombarded with the plastic version of today’s reality via television, it makes me stop and wonder just how much of American history is true.
Lots of it. When researching, get another source other than the Moose Lake Star, the Guardian…
Posted: 23rd, November 2012 | In: Key Posts, Politicians Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
