Two hundred years ago Benjamin Franklin wrote: "I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy.
"The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America."Respectable? Have you heard anything about the turkey's moral character or sound judgment lately?
Today, the turkey is most often praised - if at all - as a remarkably efficient generator of protein.
Hunters, of course, sometimes call the wild turkey wily, but you know how hunters are: If it's not nailed down, it's wily.
The current opinion about the noble bird is probably better characterized by Roget's Thesaurus, which has three cross-references for the turkey: It can be found under fowl, food and failure.
Although the turkey has grown in popularity as a source of food, it is significant that not one college or professional team in this sports-crazed land is formally called the Turkeys.
Squads bear names honoring gophers, beavers, hornets, terrapins and even razorback hogs, but not turkeys.
(One of the nicknames of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's football team is the Gobblers, but that dates back to 1912, when someone noticed that the athletes ate enormous quantities of food - very quickly.)
On Thanksgiving Day, the bird is lauded as a symbol of God's bounty. On other days, it is seen more as proof of his sense of humor.
And for this, sad to say, there is some justification.
Turkeys may not really respond to storms by looking up at the rain, opening their mouths and drowning, yet they do often behave in ways that suggest they are not quite college material.
Domestic turkeys, less intellectually gifted than their wild cousins, will sometimes eat enough to strangle themselves. (Savor that irony after a Thanksgiving meal.)
At other times, they will starve while surrounded by food.
When frightened, turkeys tend to stampede into fences or walls with such force that many suffocate.
A final unhappy note: The modern turkey has been so effectively bred for a plump breast and short legs that the male is now too ungainly to copulate. Today, almost all commercial turkeys are artificially inseminated.
The turkey has a history of image problems. While many American Indian tribes ate turkey regularly, some considered the bird stupid and cowardly and avoided its meat for fear of acquiring these traits.
Americans have been "talking turkey" since at least 1830, but the bird may not have achieved epithet status until much later.
By 1873, "turkey" had come to mean an advantage or easy profit. Soon it referred to someone who could be easily duped or caught.
Since the Depression, the designation "turkey" has been applied to more theatrical flops than anyone can remember.
For anyone who believes the turkey has been done a linguistic injustice, there is some bad news: It's only getting worse.
In the past 20 years, "turkey" has returned to vogue.
The revival began as a sarcastic description of white people by blacks, according to the late Stuart Berg Flexner, the author of "Listening to America." Now, it is entrenched as many people's insult of choice.
But why is it that the turkey has emerged as sillier than the goose and more worthy of ridicule than other birdbrained creatures?
Is it that people think the turkey should have figured out by now that November is the cruelest month and done something about it? Or is it esthetics?
"Other birds, like the goose, duck and swan, are much more graceful," Flexner has said. "If you are graceful enough you're not considered stupid."
One thinks of the soaring eagle, naturally, and of how this country might have been changed had Ben Franklin been allowed to choose the national symbol.
Picture the turkey on the Presidential Seal at a press conference or on the desk in the Oval Office.
Then contemplate the U.S. Postal Service, with its own proud eagle for an emblem. Can anyone really imagine a turkey in its place?
Is there perhaps more here than meets even the eagle's eye?
It's yet another thing to chew on this Thanksgiving.