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Helen Thomas’ Parade of Presidents
The White House press corps fixture was never famous for nuance — or objectivity.
Thomas was far more balanced before the current administration came along, but she often regretted how vigilant she had to be. She winces at the memory of President Clinton’s impeachment scandal, embarrassed that she had to ask the questions she did. Everyone was doing it, she claimed.
So why didn’t she buck the system? Here was a woman who blazed a trail when she had very little clout, and years later had all the gravitas necessary to do so again. And how does she square his behavior with her contention that character counts for White House occupants?
The biggest howler comes toward the end, when Kennedy asks Thomas, “Do you believe there’s a liberal bias in the press?”
“Hell, no,” she cries, as if she had been asked if the earth was flat. “I wanna find one fellow liberal!”
Maybe she never heard of a smooth talking Texan named Dan with a penchant for forged documents.
Thomas’s honest answers do help paint a portrait of the current media that’s far more accurate, and alarming, than even she realizes. One moment she discounts the notion that the press can destroy a presidency. The media isn’t that powerful, she implies. Later, she insists that if the press had piled on in the run-up to the Iraq War, the conflict may never have happened. Somehow, the press in her eyes could have done what every major intelligence body in the world couldn’t — suss out the fact that Saddam Hussein was bluffing regarding his weapons stockpile.
Like Walter Cronkite, Thomas has let her liberal ideology run unchecked in her later years. That’s fine for an opinion columnist, but she still brings her biases along with her when she plops down in the front row of the White House press conferences. The special plays out a clip where Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly labels her a “pinhead” for asking press secretary Dana Perino how many innocent civilians are being killed in Iraq. It’s meant to show her ability to hold the powerful accountable hasn’t ebbed with age.
Instead, it reveals her as a truly shallow thinker, for her initial query assumed the U.S. military was directly targeting civilians.
In her later years, even left-leaners have soured on Helen Thomas circa 2008.
She still hasn’t let age — and a recent illness — stop her from reporting the news as she sees it. It’s hard not to respect the fact that her tenacity hasn’t ebbed a whit. That is all the more reason the Thank You, Mr. President should have focused more on her contributions to an unfettered and gender-neutral press rather than her recent career lowlights.
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Christian Toto is a freelance writer and film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also contributes movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show and runs the blog What Would Toto Watch?
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4 Comments
1. Saltherring:Thomas and the rest of the boot-licking leftist WA DC press corps should retire and form the Church of Clinton.
Aug 18, 2008 - 7:18 am 2. WHAT WOULD TOTO WATCH? » Ketchup time Ketchup time — WHAT WOULD TOTO WATCH?:[...] out my take on the new HBO documentary “Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House” at Pajamas [...]
Aug 19, 2008 - 12:06 pm 3. _Jon:Your comment of “suss out the fact that Saddam Hussein was bluffing regarding his weapons stockpile” discounts the fact that the US has been secretly moving tons of yellowcake out of Iraq into Canada for several years.
The US didn’t announce that and they didn’t announce a few other things.
Aug 19, 2008 - 9:41 pm 4. swtexasflyer:So Helen thinks there is no liberal bias in the media. Just like Bill Clinton did not lie about Monica and a tabloid made up the story of Edwards cheating on his wife.
Aug 21, 2008 - 2:55 am