Does anyone remember Helen Thomas?

[glohworm]

Helen Thomas, as far as I know, has been a reporter at the White House for some 45 years or so!! Apparently she said Bush was the worst President of all time! Now that's saying something! The Bush adminsitration wouldn't let her be seated during the last question and answer session! How blatant can you be.

Helen Thomas got me my job with the Veterans Admainistration way back in 1974! She backed Nixon to the wall when she asked him what he was doing for the veterans coming back from Vietnam? As a result of her grilling of Nixon on national tv, the government hired 1,500 veterans to become "veterans benefits counselors". Us guys helped all the vets get their G.I. Bill education benefits throughout the country. We all owe a great debt to this woman!

[Knothead]

I never heard of her, Glohworm, but based on your description of her, I like her a lot!

She sounds like a tigress!

[glohworm]

Knot,

You bet she's a toughy! I'm surprised you never heard of her! She's always been aforded the first row during presidential question and answer sessions, out of deference to her long time posting at the White House. She was grilling far better men than Bush, all the way back to Truman! You may disagree with me about Bush, but she never, ever, *****footed around any President when it came to asking the tough questions! Check her out.

Look here Knot and you'll recognize her! “The First Lady of the Press,”

[Chuckiechan]

The purpose of a news conference is to give out information, not have cutsie news people trying to create ambushes.

Helen Thomas was a professional ambusher. Why waste time on irrelevant questions in a game of "gotcha"!

[Theophylact]

I know Helen slightly; she and my cousin Fran Lewine were the White House correspondents for United Press and the Associated Press respectively. She's a Lebanese-American, and a strong supporter of Palestinian statehood; lately, it seems, she's taken more to giving speeches rather than asking questions. Jack Shafer, in Slate, has a recent piece on the Thomas/Bush imbroglio.

She's a grand lady, and I'm sorry to see her letting her feelings get the better of her (although I agree with her opinion of Bush).

[osprey4]

Good article.

I dare say that if you were Bush or his handlers, you'd pass her over at a press conference, too. Her loathing for Bush is palpable. "This is the worst president ever," she told the Torrance, Calif., Daily Breeze in January. "He is the worst president in all of American history." Though Thomas never masked her crush on Democrats when she worked as a news writer, she comes completely out of the closet in her columns, ripping "Bush's headlong drive into war, his favor-the-rich economic policy and his campaign to put right-wing ideologues on the Supreme Court." As the child of Lebanese immigrants, Thomas knows exactly which religious button she's pushing when she repeatedly condemns Bush's plans for war on Iraq as a "crusade."

Let's face facts, though, Helen Thomas is an antique, a dinosaur. I mean, really, who would pay this woman to speak?

[J-Excel]

Originally posted by osprey4
Let's face facts, though, Helen Thomas is an antique, a dinosaur. I mean, really, who would pay this woman to speak?

With age comes wisdom.

[Chuckiechan]

And senility...

...Thomas never masked her crush on Democrats when she worked as a news writer

hmmm