Helen Thomas Resigns
It is always a wonder to me that the balance scales of human behavior are so loaded for the bad. Helen Thomas is resigning, effective today, after 70 years or so of good, hard-hitting, power-disturbing questioning is off-set by one blurted sentiment.
Thomas, 89, the longest-serving reporter in the White House press corps, was asked by the website RabbiLive.com during a May 27 “Jewish Heritage Celebration” at the White House whether she had any “comments on Israel.”
“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” said Thomas, who served for decades as the White House correspondent for United Press International (UPI) and now writes a column for Hearst newspapers.
“Remember these people are occupied and it’s their land, not German and not Poland,” Thomas said. “They can go home, Poland, Germany, and America and everywhere else.”
Her speaking agency has dropped her and now she has resigned from Hearst papers — no longer to appear in the front row at the White House briefings. Too bad. Maybe she will be released from the daily dribble to dig into deeper matters, or to write a memoir of her years as the only female in the political press corps.
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June 7th, 2010 @ 6:13 pm
Glenn Greenwald’s ever-astute response: “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. Anyone who doubts that should compare the cheap, easy and self-righteous outrage orgy against the powerless, 89-year-old columnist to the total non-reaction in the face of the incessant and ongoing anti-Arab bigotry of The New Republic’s Marty Peretz, or to the demands of then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey that the Palestinians leave the West Bank and go back to where they came from, and similar statements from Mike Huckabee (still gainfully employed at Fox News).
That’s because, as I wrote the last time Peretz had one of his vicious anti-Arab rants, severe punishment is meted out to those who engage in the wrong kind of prejudice while those who spout the right kind do so with total impunity. That, and the fact that there are consequences for the actions only of the powerless in Washington, but never the powerful. Then again, look at the bright side: with Thomas banished, White House press briefings and presidential news conferences will be much friendlier and more harmonious with the amiable, star-struck Ed Henrys remaining in place.”
June 9th, 2010 @ 2:53 pm
Good find, Joyce. And thanks, as always to GG