It's not that I find Helen Thomas to be an obligatory subject for a blog post. Quite the contrary, I pretty much blog about what I damn well please but how does this grab you? She had every right to say what she said even though it was offensive and racist and whatever else you want to throw in there. You see that's the thing about Free Speech, it's only real test comes when a Helen Thomas comes along or a Don Imus or a South Park or a Glenn Beck or a Larry Flynt or a......and it seems like in too many of these cases we simply fail the test. A rabbi asked her what she thinks of Israel and she said they should get out of Palestine and move back to Germany and Poland and so if he didn't like the response why'd he ask her? So is Helen Thomas an anti-Semitic bigot? at 89 probably as I'm sure she didn't just wake up one day on the wrong spot.
The thing about the Middle East is I don't pretend to understand it. It's one of those things you need Monarch Notes for and both sides insist the other side is 100% wrong and they are 100% right. Obama is getting alot of heat these days for being anti-Israel and for snubbing Bibi as some war criminal but again unless you're a Mideast junkie who's to say? The Mideast is the world's most controversial issue and I think the sheer tenacity of the issue over the years is what grates on me most. It's 2010, the Palestinians should have a homeland by now so we can move on to other pressing international issues that desperately need attention. I've always found the continent of Africa interesting with its long history of wars and despots and coups, its diamonds, tribes, culture, dialects and way of life and was pondering the other day about the usual conservative rationale for toppling Saddam when those phantom WMDs failed to materialize. They said and continue to say sure that was some f*'ed up intel but not only Iraq but the world is now better off without him and I was thinking the same can be said of Robert Mugabe. Africa has always been some type of nightmare continent, well parts of it anyway and as a kid growing up I was always thankful I wasn't born there to maybe wind up as part of Idi Amin's dinner banquet. It's a continent that desperately needs saving and its Third World status has gone on way too long. Let's talk about THAT.
Helen Thomas, this is what happens when you're still working at 89. She apologized for what she said and seems to me after 50 years of covering the White House there's a better way to go out.
Dare I say I found her commentary somewhat refreshing. The love affair with Israel is such that we might as well just give them a star on the flag and consider it a done deal. - soapster
ReplyDeleteIt was an ignominious way to end a career. One can criticize Israel's policies--I have Israeli friends who detest Bibi--without being anti-semetic. But that statement by Thomas was shocking.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Israel's leadership and its policies toward the Palestinians, but how could anyone with any sensibilities ever say something as outrageous as she did?
And I've always liked Thomas for her plain talk. But this sounded more like someone in early stages of dementia.
What a shame.
On the other hand, Pat Buchanan still has his job at MSNBC despite his anti-semetic and racist comments.
Eventually everyone says stupid things, I mean let he who has not said something inappropriate throw the first stone, know what I mean?
ReplyDeleteRE: Helen Thomas..
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons for mandatory retirement.
Helen Thomas was/is a hateful old hag has been a White House correspondent for decades; how many decades, I can't even guess. She is a hard-core left-winger who thinks Barack Obama is nowhere near radical enough. She is also an anti Semitic idiot, who has been humored by White House press secretaries for about as long as I have been alive. In fact I'd bet she was in Hitlers Press Corps...
ReplyDeleteThomas revealed her lunacy once again last week, when she confided that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go "home" to Germany and Poland. As usual, Thomas gives old hags a bad name..
There can be no doubt that Helen Thomas is an anti-Semite ... and she just happened to let it slip out in public on this occasion.
As for her stupid sounding apology, "I deeply regret..."
That IS NOT an apology--it's an admission that she got caught, her employer is angry, and she wishes it were otherwise.
This senile, anti-Semitic mad cow has got to go - she can't be allowed to come back to any further press conferences. She has out lived her usefulness... (if she ever had any useful purpose at all.).
I hope the White House door is open to get the stench out!
She hated Bush. She hated Reagan. She hated Jews. But she was the toast of the Washington media elite and Hamas.
Now she’s gone! I had thought until today that the only way Helen Thomas would leave the White House Press Corps would be inside a cushy pine box...
And all I can say is "F" the ugly, old anti-Semite and the horse she rode in on..!
When I saw this once highly respected Old Hag spew that awful garbage, I wanted to jump through my computer screen and bitch slap her on her ugly face. Then again, I have always wanted to do that, every time I see her at the White House press meetings. She’s just so obvious about her left wing ideas. I doubt she has asked a “unbiased” question in decades. I’m all for treating these Libs for Mad Cow Disease, before allowing them to enter . She has no filter and what she said was disgusting. If those are her beliefs, than I guess just about everyone here in USA should go back where they came from. After all, we all came form somewhere..I’m just glad I don’t have to hear that “croaky” voice anymore. Good riddance!!!!! You are way past your expiration date!
ReplyDeleteAnd I guess that Ms. Shaw Kenawe couldn’t resist the chance to get in a swipe at the Conservatives, on her comment.
The larger issue for me is Free Speech, as a country we can't handle it. I laid out a free speech principle of mine recently that applies to all these controversial cases of people saying stupid and/or offensive things (e.g. "nappy-headed 'hos")and that is: in the vast majority of cases free speech should prevail. It's as simple as that and the fact that all too often it doesn't prevail means that we want to punish that person in some way.
ReplyDeleteGot a pro-life letter in the mail the other day telling me to boycott The Family Guy. While I agree with the writer of the letter that the episode in question was deeply offensive (a) on a comedic level the episode just wasn't funny and (b) I am against boycotting sponsors in such cases. Boycotts are not unAmerican, they are very American and in keeping with the Constitution but I'm just against them is all. Goes against my free speech streak which pretty much applies across the board Helen Thomas being no exception.
I tend to agree with soapster here. All too often if you disagree with Israel or criticize her actions and policies towards the Palestinians in any way you are automatically labelled an anti-Semite. If it's wrong to use the race card then it's wrong to use this card too. I remember when Richard Bey was on WABC radio here with Monica Crowley and at the start of the second Iraq war opined that we were only there because of Israel's interests. He got canned shortly after that, no surprise there but he should have been allowed to say what he said. However there is a difference in what he said and what Helen Thomas said, what all Jews should just go home even if they have nothing to do with any of this?? It's one thing to criticize a country or its perceived influence in our foreign policy it's another thing altogether to tackle a whole racial group and that's what Helen Thomas did and that's what makes her an anti-Semite.
ReplyDeleteA Chemistry professor in a large college had some exchange students in he Class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.
ReplyDeleteThe professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new Communist government.
In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?'
The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming.
When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side.
The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.
Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.
The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as Supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, Dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, Drugs, etc.. While we continually lose our freedoms -- just a little at a time.
One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch! Also, a politician will never provide a service for you Cheaper than you can do it yourself.
Also, if you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the Future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life then you will probably delete this email, but God help you when the gate slams shut!
Keep your eyes on the newly elected Politicians who are about to slam the gate on America.
"A Government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have!"
"Vast majority of cases..." ahem...the first amendment means what it says. There is no arbiter that shall decide which cases or instances are not considered to fall within this "vast majority". Orwellian speech policing we don't need.
ReplyDeleteIn this country we really don't have free speech but we act like we do. Now in Imus' case and others like it it will be pointed out that an employer has the right to fire such a person for what he or she says and that's technically true but what I'm talking about here is the spirit of free speech. If you can't say something on the radio why have talk radio? The Israeli lobby often acts persecuted but in many cases they get their way (e.g. Richard Bey, Helen Thomas). The New York Post, what many consider to be a Zionist paper, if you don't toe the line you're an anti-Semite. That's not debate in my book and re Pat Buchanan he has said when push comes to shove and if Israel is directly threatened by an enemy we should support her and come to her defense. I'm not sure how Buchanan is a racist, someone will have to dig into the archives on that one.
ReplyDeleteThat's a colorful story Debra, reminds me of Animal Farm. I would add one thing, while the pigs are in their pen they're all watching Springer and Povich.
ReplyDeleteAnd still more are even watcing FOX News.
ReplyDeleteThe simple truth is a undercurrent of Anti semetism exists in the Democratic party, western Europe, pretty much the entire world. There was a study where 40% of Democrats said that they at least partially blamed the jews for the economic crises. This shouldnt come as a surprise to a quasi socialist coalition of Self hating White Liberals and brain washed ethnic minorities. When in doubt, go after those greedy capitalist pigs, the jews. In the Soviet Union the Evil capitalists were the Kulaks and in Nazi Germany, it was the jews. Mark my words, if or when the current bout of economic and energy S*** really hits the fan, anti semetism will reemerge with a fury.
ReplyDeleteho-hum
ReplyDelete