 Story highlights Each year, an American president "pardons" a turkey or two just before Thanksgiving 
 
 President Barack Obama has sent his turkeys to Mt. Then Obama will "pardon" the turkeys and, instead of lopping off their heads and tossing them in an oven, he will let them live out the rest of their lives at the estate in Mount Vernon. In the two years prior, three of the four pardoned turkeys died less than five months after their pardon. Some accounts credit John F. Kennedy with the first official turkey pardon, but like most JFK mythologizing, this is overblown sentimentality: Kennedy merely sent one of his turkeys back to the farm because it wasn't big enough. Bush "41" sent them to Frying Pan Park 
 
 The tradition became official in 1989, under President George H.W. Bush made the turkey pardon an annual ritual. Reagan merely quipped that he would have pardoned that year's turkey had it not been en route to a petting zoo already.
– President Obama will "pardon" a pair of turkeys today and send them to live at Mount Vernon, and if that gives you a case of the warm fuzzies, you should know that both "Caramel" and "Popcorn" will probably be dead within the year. Every turkey the president has ever pardoned is dead, including the two pardoned last year, CNN points out, with one only lasting until February. In the two previous years, three of the four died in less than five months (the other held out an impressive 16 months). The reason: The birds are bred for food, not longevity. Their normal-sized internal organs can only hold up to their carefully engineered bulk for so long. A spokesman for the National Turkey Federation, the lobbying group that provides the birds, says they have "a life expectancy of about 18 weeks. They are not raised as pets." It's one reason Brad Plumer at the Washington Post wants to end the pardon—the others being that it mocks real presidential pardons, and isn't nearly the historic tradition it pretends to be. Of course, at this point columns decrying the pardon are becoming a tradition of their own.