First came the reports that Bush’s dramatic Thanksgiving mid-air encounter with a British Airlines pilot never happened during the President’s trip to Iraq.

Now comes word the turkey he proudly held up for the troops was a fake. Yep, the troops never got to eat Bush’s turkey.

In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge platter laden with a golden-brown turkey.

The bird is so perfect it looks as if it came from a food magazine, with bunches of grapes and other trimmings completing a Norman Rockwell image that evokes bounty and security in one of the most dangerous parts of the world.

But as a small sign of the many ways the White House maximized the impact of the 21/2-hour stop at the Baghdad airport, administration officials said yesterday that Bush picked up a decoration, not a serving plate.

...the foray has opened new credibility questions for a White House that has dealt with issues as small as who placed the "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the aircraft carrier Bush used to proclaim the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and as major as assertions about Saddam Hussein's arsenal of unconventional weapons and his ability to threaten the United States.

So what did the troops get for Thanksgiving? Well, not the roasted-fake turkey the President held up. Instead they ate steamed turkey. They deserved better. And Americans deserve more truth and less turkey from the White House.