President Barack Obama says Thanksgiving is a day for food, football and hoping “the turkey didn’t turn out too dry”.
Advertisement
It’s the one time in the year that you can see a turkey in the Rose Garden.
But Malia and Sasha Obama couldn’t resist a burst of giggles on Wednesday when their father plunged new depths of silliness during the annual Thanksgiving turkey “pardon” at the White House. The tradition of the USA president pardoning a turkey at Thanksgiving began in 1947 under President Harry Truman, the White House said.
President Obama signed a $607 billion defense bill Wednesday while again protesting congressional restrictions on moving detainees from the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The names of the turkeys were chosen from submissions entered by schoolchildren in California. “Abe (the turkey) is now a free bird”. If you’re aching to watch a turkey talk back at Obama for like half a second, skip to the 46 minute mark on the White House’s overly long video footage of the event.
“Today, François Hollande and I agreed that our nations must do even more together”, Obama said at a joint press conference Tuesday at the White House with Hollande.
E! News reported that the 14-year-old daughter of President Obama, Sasha, was looking perfectly cozy in her cream knit sweater, which she matched with a high-waisted denim pencil skirt.
“They do this exclusively because it makes me feel good, not because they actually think that this is something I should be doing”, Obama said.
The expected Pentagon plan would represent a last-gasp effort by the Obama administration to convince opponents in the Congress to allow transfer to the United States soil of dozens of Guantanamo detainees, who were captured and detained without trials during the USA counter-terrorism campaign after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The President then became a bit more serious, talking about his volunteering with his family “to help serve a Thanksgiving meal to homeless veterans here in D.C”.
Advertisement
The US president said the bill did, however, contain benefits, including “vital” support for military personnel and their families, “important reforms” to the US military retirement system and a 1.3 percent pay rise for US servicemen and women.
