Want to eat like a president? Compare your Thanksgiving dinner to that of President Bush. Here's the White House menu for Thursday's Camp David feast:

Free-Range Roast Turkey

Cornbread Dressing

Cranberry Sauce

Sautéed Green Beans

Morelia Style Gazpacho with Spinach Salad

Zucchini Gratin

Whipped Maple Sweet Potatoes

Buttered Mashed Potatoes

Giblet Gravy

Fresh Clover Rolls with Honey Butter

Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Topping

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Mousse Trifle

Fresh Fruit Platter

Nothing, not even the pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey, happens at the White House without some controversy.

President Bush Wednesday morning presided over his last such pardoning, addressing "Pumpkin," a 45 pound bird, and a backup turkey "Pecan."

"Pumpkin will be the honorary grand marshal of Disneyland's Thanksgiving Day Parade," the president declared. "Together, these birds will gobble the rest of their days in the happiest place on Earth. I just hope they stay humble there."

Follow this link to watch video of the president pardoning the turkey

But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was not amused.

"You might be a lame duck, but you still have the power to help lame turkeys, who are made that way by the cruelty of the meat industry," said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk in a letter to Bush.

"For years," she wrote, "the pardoned turkeys have been sent to places where they were neglected and left in small enclosures without sufficient mental stimulation. Many have died within a year of being pardoned. This year's turkeys need to be sent to a credible farmed-animal sanctuary that has experts in turkey behavior and care. An excellent sanctuary just outside Washington, D.C., has confirmed that it would be happy to take the pardoned birds and provide them with an ideal environment — including other animals to socialize with. PETA would be happy to help arrange their transportation."

The White House was firm in its decision.

Said spokesman Tony Fratto: "I think on instruction from the White House Counsel I have to refer all turkey pardoning questions to the Office of the Pardon Attorney."

The Pentagon late last night finally got around to acknowledging that one of its best known Guantanamo prisoners, Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, had been sent home to Yemen. This was nearly a full day after we'd posted a story on our Web site that the transfer was taking place and hours after the Washington Post had announced the same on its front page.

Reading the press release from the Defense Department is otherworldly — as have been most things involving Guantanamo, the supposed home for the worst of the worst. The headline, "Detainee Transfer Announced," is the same the Pentagon uses for every prisoner transfer, and there's no hint of Hamdan's role as the named plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned the original military tribunal scheme as unconstitutional.

It also provides the boilerplate defense of the tribunal system: "Military commissions have historically been used to prosecute enemy combatants who violate the laws of war and provide a full and fair trial, while protecting classified and sensitive information and all personnel participating in the process, including the accused.

Then there's this reminder of how fair the system has been: "Since 2002, more than 520 detainees have departed Guantanamo for other countries including Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, and Yemen."

No mention, of course, that only one of those 520 stood trial of any sort (plea deal sent him back to Australia before any verdict was reached) and that most were innocents who should never have been in Guantanamo in the first place.

As for Hamdan, he was so dangerous that the military jurors who convicted him in August of lending material support to a terrorist organization defied prosecutors' demand for a 30-year prison sentence and set a sentence that would get him out before the New Year. His attorney posits he'll go back to driving again, says Carol Rosenberg's story from this morning.

ANOTHER OBAMA NEWS CONFERENCE 10:45 this morning, Eastern. It is just like having two presidents. Except the other one is quieter.

UPDATE: The other one pardoned a turkey. Very amusing juxtaposition on MSNBC in the trailer listing the pair's activities for the day.

ABOUT THAT U.S.-IRAQ TROOP AGREEMENT It's going slowly in the Iraqi parliament. The thought was it would get approved fairly quickly. But at 4:30 p.m. in Baghdad, there's still been no vote — and there may not be one today. Parliament reconvenes in about an hour. U.S. officials are no doubt nervous. See today's story to understand why.

UPDATE: Parliament has put the vote off till tomorrow. Plan may be to set a national referendum for next year that would allow Iraqis to disapprove the accord then, without affecting the basic pullout date.

Nearly 10 days ago, Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambasssador to Iraq, signed an agreement with the Iraqi government that lays out how U.S. troops are to conduct themselves in the three years before the deadline arrives for them to leave. But in the days since, the Bush administration has declined to make the document public.

The only English version has been one the McClatchy Baghdad Bureau produced from copies widely available in Iraq.

Now we know why: American officials don't agree with the expansive interpretation of the agreement circulating in Iraq, but they don't want to discuss it lest that upset what appears to be the Iraqi parliament's likely approval of the document tomorrow. Read our current story here.

If an English version of the agreement had been released before the Iraqi vote it might have encouraged people to question its provisions. With no release, there'll be no discussion, so no one will have to offer explanations of why Pentagon officials are unconcerned.

With a broad smile, President-elect Barack Obama apologized to me Tuesday for assigning me a seat in the Cubs section of a Monday news conference.

The exchange, from Tuesday's press conference:

President-elect Obama: I'm going to call on Steve Thomma. Where's Steve? And the reason I'm going to call on Steve, I understand that, as a lifelong White Sox fan, you were placed in the Cubs section yesterday, and I want to apologize for that. This is also part of the new way of doing business. When we make mistakes, we admit them.

Thomma: Well, thank you, sir. That's the change we need ...

President-elect Obama: That's the ...(laughs)

Thomma: ... on behalf of White Sox fans. (laughing)

Steve Thomma, a Chicagoan and McClatchy's White House correspondent, blogged earlier about his dismay over finding himself placed in the Cubs section of the press gallery when he's a White Sox fan. The Obama folks tried to make up for it today.

Here's the president-elect on the subject. Too bad the video doesn't include Steve's excellent question.

There's not going to be any honeymoon period between House Republicans and President-elect Barack Obama.

Shortly after Obama introduced his new budget team Tuesday and discussed an economic stimulus plan, House GOP Leader John Boehner warned that with families and businesses hurting, "We should respond to these challenges not by spending more of Americans' hard-earned money and increasing their pain, but by removing barrier to their prosperity."

Boehner did praise the Obama economic team as "an experienced, qualified team of economic advisers."

But, the Ohio Republican said, "The advice of working families should be taken into account as well. Americans simply do not believe more government spending will get our economy moving again, and our hope is that the president-elect and his team will listen to them."

Call it pragmatic leadership. Call it Change We Need.

President-elect Barack Obama's team has switched one seat for today's news conference: your correspondent will today be seated in the White Sox section.

Starting with a press conference on Monday, Team Obama divided the assigned seats into a Cubs section on the geographically correct North Side of the room and a White Sox section on the South Side. Finding myself in the Cubs seats, I felt disoriented. Recovering, I posted a quick diatribe against this injustice for a longtime Sox fan.

Responses came from around the globe.

A kindly vice president of the White Sox called, offering his help and recounting how the team once sent then Sen. Obama some new Sox hats to replace his worn hat, only to be told by aides they couldn’t get the beloved hat from Obama’s head if they tried. Was Obama “re-gifting” when he gave a Sox hat recently to Vice President-elect Joe Biden?

A Sox fan from South Africa wrote to commiserate, sharing a copy of the Obama autograph he received, to “a fellow White Sox fan.”

A fellow journalist from McClatchy messaged immediately, an American league fan if not a Sox fan, offering the assistance of the legal department if necessary to pry me from the Cubs dungeon.

Not necessary. My seat was changed. And on the seat, under the name of McClatchy, is the message: “All’s well on the South Side now.”