THE THING WITH FEATHERS

I’m not a real vegetarian -- my diet isn’t based on moral grounds and isn’t even consistent -- but I grow increasingly put off by the annual White House tradition of sparing the life of a turkey as Thanksgiving nears. The latest such event was held yesterday, starring a bird named, for some reason, Stars.

Stars was sent to lifelong refuge in a Virginia park after the photo op, in which President Bush patted the bird and its owner beamed down paternally as the cameras clicked away, controlled by journalists complicit in a farce of mercy. A worse farce than usual because the president’s usual farces at least have news value: “mission accomplished” in Iraq and whatnot.

Don’t get me wrong. The United States eats turkey on Thanksgiving, and nothing is going to change that. But that’s why the presidential pardoning is so offensive. The deal Stars is given, without even being asked, is the same offered Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” to go free while others die, so long as he’s willing to put a happy face on the occasion.

Yossarian condemns the deal as “odious,” and the offerers agree. The inarticulate and unknowing turkey is unable to give an opinion or make a choice; it’s trotted out as a token of benevolence by the White House unasked by the public (or would there be an outcry if this event was skipped?). The bird’s a walking, squawking metaphor for the luck or privilege enjoyed by some of us in a society that chooses to eat living things domestically and kill them for ideology or politics abroad.

Odious? It’s fowl.

The New York Times says Stars was “vocal” and “tried to steal the limelight,” but -- since I ascribe no great intelligence to turkeys, no matter what Ben Franklin felt about them -- I don’t believe it was protesting the fate of its fellows, like a movie star accepting an Oscar to make a statement of protest. It’s just a natural instinct, perhaps, to scream as you’re placed on a platform, strangers gather around, voices boom and lightning flashes at you from ominous black boxes.

Better terrorized than dead, Stars. But if there’s a Stripes out there that you knew, that you grew up with on the farm or in the factory, it’s probably dead.