Helen Thomas

[Kulindahr]

Funny how when right wingers routinely make hateful comments about gays,blacks,women or the presidents children, that's all ok,because they are merely entertainers...How about Bill O'Reilly comparing gays to Al Queda the other day?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEIE4isBXqE

I just watched that five times, and I don't see him comparing gays to Al Qaeda. That conclusion is fed by hate of O'Reilly, and nothing else.

She said this was part of their "Come as you are" campaign, showing people from all walks of life. O'Reilly took a shot at that with the Al Qaeda quip -- a way of asking just how far their invitation goes. In context, he's noting that he thinks being inclusive of gays is over the line, and offers something that is much farther out.

 

[Kulindahr]

Secondly, the administration DID voice their concerns, but I can guarantee you that what they said publicly wasn't even HALF of what they said privately to Israel. If you think they just ignored it, then, again, your bias shows through.

That's been how the US deals with Israel since before Reagan: support publicly, give hell privately -- and occasionally, put their aid on hold.

It's true, if you look at other columnists like Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin who are consistently more outlandish than Thomas's statement. I chalk some of it up to age - at 90 you have to be a little tired of fighting.

Excuse me while I go rinse my mouth out -- I just had a mental image of Coulter at 90....

Silly me, I thought when every major news agency reported that 9 civilains were killed by commandos in international waters,they were slaughtered.

That's what you get for not listening to the whole story.

I know you're a right wing hack and all,and thus, haven't spent a minute in the service. But I have,and a soldier equipped in body armor, helmet, and semi automatic weapon,facing a frightened civilian with a pipe isn't really a fair match.

Can't even get the facts straight: they were armed with paint ball weapons, the civilians charged to the attack which sort of says they weren't frightened, and the civilians had stun grenades.
So you're right that it wasn't a fair match: the IDF thought they were facing peace activists, when what they were facing was people who came ready to do serious bodily damage -- so it wasn't a fair match. Or at least it wouldn't have been if the IDF hadn't been wearing sidearms.

And you try to hide your falsehoods behind a personal attack.

Then again, it's never been about a fair match,or accurate representations with you people..

You base your position on falsehood and distortion, and then make accusations about inaccurate representation?

 

[Edward Twinkletoes]

Except she's a member of the press and people actually listen to her.

BFD. Ever heard of the first amendment? I know, I know. Free speech is outdated because it can actually make a difference now but still.
.

 

[NickCole]

I would like to dispute this notion that all reporters are biased. It sounds like "Fashionable Nonsense" to me (good book if you don't know of it already...)

Perhaps the reason this outburst seemed so peculiar coming from Helen Thomas is that she's made a career of asking questions from any angle she can think of, from the point of view of any side to a dispute. People are not hostages to what they initially know, or think they know. Objectivity is both a skill and a professional responsibility, not a pretence.

It's a problem that's been increasing for some time, reaching crisis level following 9/11 when Bush & Co manipulated the press to the extent it even controlled the front page and editorial page of The New York Times. ObamaCo has done the same since the Primaries. This manipulation of journalist's bias, and the MSM's egregious misuse of their own power, was pivotal in bringing on the Iraq War, the piece of crap Obama stimulus bill and health care reform and completely unacceptable response to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And if it continues, which it probably will because ObamaNation likes it this way, it will usher in worse messes.

Glenn Greenwald addressed an element of it yesterday:

Our hard-core, adversarial press corps

On Friday, CNN's Ed Henry posted a series of giggly, adolescent updates on his Twitter feed, describing the events that took place at a "beach" party thrown by Joe Biden, at the Vice President's mansion, for various "reporters" and White House officials. [There's a sampling of those tweets at the link] ...

I personally don't think that these types of interactions "violate journalistic ethics" because I don't think such a thing exists for them. Rather, all of this just helpfully reveals what our nation's leading "journalists" really are: desperate worshipers of political power who are far more eager to be part of it and to serve it than to act as adversarial checks against it -- and who, in fact, are Royal Court Spokespeople regardless of which monarch is ruling. ...

...

UPDATE: As for the Helen Thomas condemnation fest and subsequent resignation today, the central issue -- as both my Salon colleague Gabriel Winant and The American Prospect's Adam Serwer adeptly document -- is not the perception that she's guilty of bigotry, but the wrong kind of bigotry. ...

[Read the whole piece:] http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/07/washington/

Helen Thomas' remarks last week were offensive but that's not the reason she's being treated this way. She has integrity as a journalist, she values forthrightness over being liked, does not let them manipulate her into their echo chamber, and she speaks truth to power -- she had to be tossed under the bus along with the other authentics.

 

[evanrick]

woe is me......

 

[MystikWizard]

This is all Obama's fault. Somehow, I just know it is.

 

[Jack Springer]

This is all Obama's fault. Somehow, I just know it is.

Naw, Obama is still blaming Bush for everything.

 

[irydion]

what needs to be taken into consideration is that she was born in 1920, when no-one, but a small part of Jews, even dreamed that a jewish state would be created. She witnessed mass immigration of Jews to Palestine, she was my age when Israel was created. For most people the existance of Israel and a large number of Jews in Israel is obvious, because it was like that all their life. But she was born in different times.

She was caught off-garde in a heated moment anyway. Good that she apologised. A shame she was practically forced to resign. One silly comment shouldn't be held more important than a life of achievements. Especially since she apologised.

I've heard USA reporters, politicians, senators saying much dumber stuff, like that Palestinians should all move to Jordan etc...

 

[bankside]

what needs to be taken into consideration is that she was born in 1920, when no-one, but a small part of Jews, even dreamed that a jewish state would be created. She witnessed mass immigration of Jews to Palestine, she was my age when Israel was created. For most people the existance of Israel and a large number of Jews in Israel is obvious, because it was like that all their life. But she was born in different times.

She was caught off-garde in a heated moment anyway. Good that she apologised. A shame she was practically forced to resign. One silly comment shouldn't be held more important than a life of achievements. Especially since she apologised.

I've heard USA reporters, politicians, senators saying much dumber stuff, like that Palestinians should all move to Jordan etc...

Yeah, I'd like to add to this while making it clear that I disagree with the position she just retracted entirely.

In her lifetime, she saw Europe betray the Jews, and watched them flee to the middle east in the hope of building a secure shelter, and then watched them continue to suffer without any lasting security, in a state of eternal conflict. The Second World War hasn't really ended yet for Israel.

In her mind, quite apart from any questions of justice for Arab/Palestinian displacement as a result of Israel's establishment, I see how she could easily be given to think "Why bother? Why don't they just go 'home' to where they came from, because the State of Israel has hardly given them the peace and security they sought...Europe is much improved...so why fight it? Why bother?"

She might have owned her house for longer than Israel has existed. That kind of gives you a different perspective on things. And in her lifetime, countries and even empires have come and gone by the dozen. Why should Israel be any different?

She was mistaken; I think Israel is still necessary, but from her perspective, it was an easier mistake to make.

Why do you think that?

And that's why it's a pity she's retired. She apologised and seemed to mean it. That was all that was required. Her perspective and years of experience are still useful for anyone in politics, and her political opinions shouldn't be blindly accepted anyway.

 

[kallipolis]

For more than a few it is not good enough that Helen Thomas's career ended in humiliation. She really needed to be lynched for daring to speak the unspeakable on the matter of Israel, in the land of the free where freedom of expression is paramount. Israel, excepted. How dare, Helen Thomas, speak her mind! After all, she is only a journalist.

Helen Thomas's demise is a poignant reminder that in the United States, when Israel is the topic best not test ones right to freedom of expression. Especially when you are a journalist. Fancy that! A journalist being obliged to apologise, and retire into the wilderness for daring to express their heartfelt opinion face to face with an activist rabbi.

How honest can you get? Should our opinions be restrained simply because of our fear of censorship, that Israel is much too delicate a subject to exercise ones right to freedom of expression?

Nor do I believe that freedom of speech should be vouchsafed only to those who support inward Jewish migration to Israel, but denied to those who advocate an opposite movement, or that they may be pilloried, marginalised and destroyed. That is not freedom of speech. That is censorship. By threat, and intimidation.

That such pieties in the United States on the holy topic that is Israel should be permitted to intimidate commentators, from dissenting on those pieties, reminds us that Thomas Paine's wise words are being forgotten so that American sentiments on Israel can be protected from the off the cuff remarks of a journalist.

Helen Thomas apologised for daring to express her personal opinion. Her would be lynchers must now feel satisfied that she has publicly confessed to her crime. Helen Thomas imitators should take note. Who would be so foolish?

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

~Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, December 23, 1791

 

[BostonPirate]

she's a 90 yar old woman who lived when blacks went to the back of the buss and the ovens were burning jews in germany.

She didn't get senile and develope these beliefs... she grew old and forgot to not speak what she'd been thinking all along.

She thought she was soooo special that the rules didn't apply to her anymore.

And so her entire career... fifty years... this will be its post mortem.

She will be remembered as that mean old anti semitic lady who sat in the front.

It's a shame that she desroyed herself by simply being unble to contain her racism due to age.

and guys.... get a clue... if she doesn't like the jews and can rationalize hate as logic, then I gauranttee there are other ugly little toads waiting to jump out that aged senile mouth that would also have damaged her career.

Bottom line... she is a racist, and there is a minority president in the white house. She had to go.

I am old enough to remember the tail end of the dan rather years, ...... the real gotch journalism era. It was when journalist learned they could unseat a president and started talking down to them.

That era is over.

Bye bye hellen. You won't be misssed.

 

[kallipolis]

^And any freedom of speech that depends upon its content is not a freedom, but merely a road sign marking where liberties end and censoriousness begins.

 

[BostonPirate]

Unless you are paid to report the facts. then you have to make certain allowances.

 

[kallipolis]

Unless you are paid to report the facts. then you have to make certain allowances.

This matter is not one of allowances, rather of freedom of expression becoming a lynching offence, when the topic is Israel, and your personal opinion is contrary to the prevailing sense of pious righteousness that Israel is always right. No matter what.

 

[irydion]

She might have owned her house for longer than Israel has existed. That kind of gives you a different perspective on things. And in her lifetime, countries and even empires have come and gone by the dozen. Why should Israel be any different?

I agree, that's my point.
However, I disagree with a notion that "Europe betrayed Jews". There was one state - Germany - who was actively exterminating Jews, others were at war with it, occupied, sometimes forced into collaboration. Hitler may have received from individuals for his anti-jewish plans, but there were also many who risked a lot trying to help Jews. A notion that Europe betray Jews is suitable for Israel in its attempts to get European Jews to settle there, but is harmful and even racist towards Europeans. Anyway, it's in Israel that they are likely to be killed, and it's only in Israel that there is any possibility of their mass extermination (in case Hamas/Iran/whoever will capture Tell Aviv).

It's a shame that she desroyed herself by simply being unble to contain her racism due to age.

Is it really racism? I'm not sure of that. She just don't think Jews have right to Palestine, which is natural from her point of view, as she witnessed them coming there, and from her perspective they are fresh immigrants to this place. Her comment was anachronic and dumb, but not necessarily racist.

Anyway, she is as semitic as Jews or more, so she isn't racist in a strict sense.

 

[BostonPirate]

This matter is not one of allowances, rather of freedom of expression becoming a lynching offence, when the topic is Israel, and your personal opinion is contrary to the prevailing sense of pious righteousness that Israel is always right. No matter what.

I don't think israel is always right. Hellen should have known better. Someone should have urged her to retire before this happened.

Her free choice was to be a member of the press. she freely chose that career and it comes with a few requirements above and beyond.

 

[kallipolis]

I don't think israel is always right. Hellen should have known better. Someone should have urged her to retire before this happened.

Her free choice was to be a member of the press. she freely chose that career and it comes with a few requirements above and beyond.

Helen Thomas's personal opinion being expressed in an off the cuff remark is also her right to freedom of expression to speak as she feels.

When our right to express our personal opinion results in us being pilloried, and being obliged to resign, and apologise for daring to express views that fly in the face of the sacrosant piousness that poses as justice for Israel, then there is a real need to worry that the United States is losing its well established reputation for permitting people to speak as they feel, without fear of repressive counter actions. That is a reality that is peculiar to totalitarian states.

The McCarthy era informs us that America's democratic traditions can be compromised, and endangered by the very people who speak so loudly of protecting, Israel from critical analysis of its government's policies towards the Palestinian people.

 

[BostonPirate]

with freedom and rights come great responsibility.

to raise the specter of McCartyism at this point is ludicrous. Truly.

She is a public figure and a journalist. Her job requires that she appear impartial in public. If she has a problem with appearing in public she is free to have a career in another field.

and with that in mind, she was shown the door.

The tragedy of Hellen Thomas isn't about israel. it isn't about free speech. its about the ability choose to give up one of those things in search of a greater thing.... Like reporting unbiased truth to the world as a white house reporter.

She chose to be a reporter all those years and even at the age of 89 if you are a reporter you can't make biased statements and continue to be a real journlist.

thats when you go work for Fox or MSNBC. Thats fine. She can make money somewere else and be free to express her racism. let her write more books.

but as a reporter she should have known not to say that stuff because its her job to report when OTHER people say that stuff.

 

[bankside]

Boston Pirate, listen to yourself! Why don't you just say the Sandmen should have dragged her off to Carousel before she got old enough to embarrass herself by being wrong!

This would have been a big deal if she had not retracted, but now it's just a tempest in a teapot or a witch hunt or something.

 

[JB3]

Boston Pirate, listen to yourself! Why don't you just say the Sandmen should have dragged her off to Carousel before she got old enough to embarrass herself by being wrong!

This would have been a big deal if she had not retracted, but now it's just a tempest in a teapot or a witch hunt or something.

Her 'retraction' was a back-handed insult to Israel, not any genuine sentiment of regret.