Everyone’s freaking out about this video of Sarah Palin being interviewed in front of a live turkey slaughter immediately after pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving. Should her aides have moved her away from the killing machine before she started talking to reporters? Of course. Has Palin just further confirmed that she’s a ridiculous person? Uh huh. Does it make the fact that “pardoning” a turkey for Thanksgiving is a meaningless, treacly tradition meant to make us feel a little less guilty about the largesse of America’s fattest holiday somehow less real? Nope.

Of course, if you’re less cynical than we are, you may like to vote on the names of the two turkeys up for pardon by President Bush. Click here. Voting is open until Nov. 26. We like “Yam & Jam.”