THE PLIGHT OF A COURAGEOUS HELEN THOMAS ATTESTS THAT THE SHADOW FORM OF GOVERNMENT IN PLACE TODAY IS NOT THE ONE THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE IN OPERATIONAL CONTROL OF THIS COUNTRY. THIS FURTHER SUPPORTS OUR THESIS THAT AN ELITIST CENTRIX CONTROLS THIS COUNTRY; ONE IN CONTROL OF THE MEDIA PER THE STRAUSSIAN SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT FOR THE ELITE WHO DISDAIN CRITICISM.

HELEN THOMAS
LET'S MAKE SURE SHE DOESN'T SUFFER THE FATE
OF PIERRE SALINGER BY THE INDIFFERENCE OF HER PEERS.

Press corps doyenne gets no notice 03-07-03

     THE WASHINGTON TIMES
     A long-running Washington tradition apparently ended last night when, for the first time in memory, the doyenne of the White House press corps was not called on in a presidential press conference.
     Syndicated columnist Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, was relegated to the third row in last night's East Room event and — if the memory of press corps veterans is accurate — received her first presidential snub.
     One reporter who has covered the past six presidents said: "I don't remember a press conference in which [Mrs. Thomas] didn't get a question."
     For many years, it was a tradition for Mrs. Thomas to ask the first question at White House news conferences and end them by saying, on behalf of the press corps, "Thank you, Mr. President." However, in recent years, her influence has waned — although she was still afforded one of the first questions and continues to enjoy a front-row seat at regular White House briefings.
     For four decades the White House correspondent for United Press International, Mrs. Thomas, 82, has in recent months harangued Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, asking how President Bush can slaughter innocent Iraqis in a quest for oil.
     Now syndicated by Hearst Newspapers, Mrs. Thomas has also denounced Mr. Bush outside the confines of the White House briefing room. "This is the worst president ever," Mrs. Thomas told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif., in January. "He is the worst president in all of American history."
     Also snubbed by Mr. Bush at last night's news conference was Mike Allen of The Washington Post, the second consecutive time that the president has skipped over The Post's correspondent, who was seated last night in the front row.
     — Joseph Curl

The following is an excerpt from a press briefing given by White House press secretary Ari Fleischer on January 6:

HELEN THOMAS (Hearst columnist and longtime UPI White House correspondent): At the earher briefing, An, you said that the president deplored the taking of innocent lives. Does that apply to all innocent lives in the world? And I have a follow-up.

FLEISCHER: I refer specifically to a horrible terrorist attack on Tel Aviv that killed scores and wounded hundreds. And the president, as he said in his statement yesterday, deplores in the strongest terms the taking of those lives and the wounding of those people, innocents in Israel.

THOMAS: My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?

FLEISCHER: Helen, the question is how to protect Americans, and our allies and friends--

THOMAS: They're not attacking you.

FLEISCHER: --from a country--

THOMAS: Have they laid a glove on you or on the United States, the Iraqis, in 11 years?

FLEISCHER: I guess you have forgotten about the Americans who were killed in the first Gulf War as a result of Saddam Hussein's aggression then.

THOMAS: Is this revenge, 11 years of revenge?

FLEISCHER: Helen, I think you know very well that the president's position is that he wants to avert war, and that the president has asked the United Nations to go into Iraq to help with the purpose of averting war.

In a recent speech, Thomas said, "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war. Bush's policy of preemptive war is immoral-- such a policy would legitimize Pearl Harbor. It's as if they learned none of the lessons from Vietnam."

From Rense.com
http://rense.com/general35/straw.htm

Was Donahue's Thomas
Interview The Last Straw?
By LinnCiesla
2-27-3

Houston Chronicle Februry 1, 2003:

PRESIDENT Bush is so right. Saddam Hussein is a bad man, a tyrant. With a wink from us, he went to war with Iran in 1980 and invaded Kuwait in 1990. He has defied the United Nations. And he has been ruthless toward the Iraqi people.

Bush made those points in your State of the Union address, but he still didn't explain why the United States should attack Iraq.

I could name you a host of national leaders in the Asia, Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe who also are bad men. But Bush isn't hell-bent on deposing them.

The fact is, the president blew it Tuesday night. With the world watching, he passed up a chance to make a convincing case for why the United States should attack Iraq. Instead, he focused on Saddam's evil ways and the U.S. claim that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and is concealing them from the "so-called" U.N. inspectors, as Bush's top aides derisively tag them.

The president reached too far, however, when he said Iraq was "a serious and mounting threat to our country."

Without proof, that's a stretch, to say the least.

Bush can demonize Hussein all he wants, but that is not enough to justify killing thousands of Americans and Iraqis to get one man.

Instead of making his case, Bush did a great job of using his State of the Union speech to tout yet another speech, Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation next week to the U.N. Security Council.

For now, it's more of Bush's "get ready to get ready" approach.

The president said Powell would present the facts to the United Nations on Feb. 5. That will be a refreshing change after all the vituperative rhetoric that the administration has dished out for months.

Powell's presentation will allow us to judge whether Bush's crusade to get Saddam is worth our lives and treasure.

Meanwhile, Bush should memorize a sentence from the State of the Union speech and try to live by it.

I refer to his blast that Saddam was a leader who "has shown his utter contempt for the United Nations and for the opinion of the world."

Gosh, that description could fit some one else I know.

Right now, the opinion of the world ranges from skepticism about Bush's motives to outright opposition to any U.S.-led military adventure.

On the question of "utter contempt for the United Nations," the president and other administration officials have indicated the United States would attack Iraq even without the approval of the U.N. Security Council.

Bush hinted at that go-it-alone philosophy when he said "we will consult" with the U.N. "but let there be no misunderstanding . . . we will lead a coalition to disarm him." At another point, he said his course of action won't depend on the decisions of others and that he would do whatever he thinks is necessary.

In other words, he hopes the United Nations approves of his military operation but, even if it doesn't, he going to do what he wants to do anyway.

Meantime, the president's real goals for the second Persian Gulf war are mystifying. Does he covet the Iraqi oilfields? Is he trying to avenge Saddam's attempt to assassinate his father? Is his Iraq campaign an effort to bolster his political standing by trying to continue the post-Sept. 11 surge in American patriotism?

The contradictions in his foreign policy are rife. Bush sees no reason to defend to a skeptical public and world the illogic of his approach. Iraq - where U.N. inspectors last week said they have no evidence of nuclear weapons - somehow poses "an even greater threat" to us than North Korean and Iran, which actually are developing nuclear weapons.

Flimsy as it is, Bush explains: "Different threats require different strategies."

Iraq has been on Bush's radar screen since he came into office. He seems to have a messianic mission to destroy the Iraqi regime.

So now all eyes shift to Colin Powell, who persuaded Bush to go to the United Nations in the first place. Powell will be like the prosecutor making final arguments before the jury, making his arguments and pointing to his evidence, which we will be seeing for the first time.

Bush appears ready to attack, whether or not the verdict is in his favor.

Helen Thomas was on top of her game in writing as follows on July 21, 2002:

WHY doesn't President Bush give diplomacy a chance?

When he has tried it, it has worked. Remember when he defused an angry standoff with Beijing after a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet on April 1 last year, killing the pilot? After 11 days, Bush said he was "very sorry," and the Chinese released the U.S. plane's 24 crew members held captive on Hainan island.

Bush also was effective recently in easing dangerous tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir when he dispatched diplomats to talk to both sides.

But when it comes to Iraq, all he does is threaten Iraq's Saddam Hussein with war. If he carries out his threat, it won't be a cheap victory, and it will take a huge human toll.

Bush was asked at a news conference July 8, "Regardless of when or how, is it your firm intention to get rid of Saddam Hussein in Iraq?"

"Yes," he replied tersely.

Asked how hard he thought the battle would be, Bush said, "It's the stated policy of this government to have a regime change. . . . And we'll use all the tools at our disposal to do so. . . . And there's ways, different ways, to do it."

Well, it's not news that the United States has various means to zap any nation in the world. But when Bush states our aggressive intentions so glibly, why are Americans so acquiescent?

Has Congress forgotten that it has the constitutional prerogative to declare war? Are the lawmakers in office simply to genuflect?

Has Saddam actually threatened the United States? Bush and several hawkish aides have accused Baghdad of sponsoring terrorism and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. But even the president is not alleging that there is any immediate threat.

If there was one, Bush would be finding it much easier to rally the other nations in the region and around the world to support his battle plans.

With the specter of a U.S. attack on Iraq, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has been trying to persuade the Iraqi dictator to permit the return of international weapons inspectors who were ousted in 1998. The inspectors were trying to see if Saddam was abiding by a U.N. mandate to stop producing and hiding the weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam has offered to let the inspectors come back if the United Nations will lift the economic sanctions it imposed in 1990 after his invasion of Kuwait.

Now it seems that Bush is trying to spook him with psychological warfare by allowing the administration to leak detailed plans calling for an invasion of Iraq with up to 250,000 Americans. Does the president really plan to risk all those lives to get one man? What is the logic of that?

There is speculation that Bush wants to avenge his father, who was criticized by many conservatives in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War ended for not sending forces to Baghdad to topple Saddam. I personally find it hard to believe that such a military undertaking would be personally motivated.

George H.W. Bush, incidentally, felt he had accomplished the U.S. mission by liberating Kuwait and expelling Iraqi forces that year. The elder Bush decided, wisely I believe, that it would take too many American lives to depose Saddam. It's too bad his son is not on the same compassionate wave length.

As a real threat, Saddam is pretty well de-fanged. His ability to move is constrained, and his country is ostracized. The sanctions aren't perfect, but they do hurt it economically. We bomb the no- fly zone over northern Iraq early and often, lest he forget who won the war.

Besides, isn't it up to the Iraqi people to determine the fate of their own brutal leaders?

Bush has issued similar "regime change" decrees against Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who he says has to go.

Sure, we have the military might to force such changes ourselves, but what does Bush's belligerency do to our image as a peace-loving country committed to collective security in a global society? Would a U.S. iron hand make us less vulnerable to terrorist attacks?

All the saber-rattling has made our friends and allies around the world increasingly wary, not knowing where our leader is going to take us next.

The president has had worldwide support in going after the terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere. But an unprovoked pre- emptive attack on Iraq would be a hard sell. He should try more diplomacy. An olive branch just might work.

Highlighted by SenderBerl on 11/14/02:

Journalist Helen Thomas Condemns Bush Administration

By Sarah H.  Wright
News Office
Article Dated 11/12/2002

Veteran journalist Helen Thomas brought the grit and whir of a White House press conference to Bartos Theater on Monday evening, speaking with passion about the media's role in a democracy whose leaders seem eager for war. Actually, the 82-year-old former United Press International reporter didn't just speak: she surged into her topic, giving everyone present an immediate sense of the grumpy wit and fierce precision that gave her reporting on American presidents Kennedy through Bush II such a competitive and lasting edge. "I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter," said Thomas, who is now a columnist for Hearst News Service. "Now I wake up and ask myself, 'Who do I hate today?'" Her short list of answers seems not to vary from war, President Bush, timid office-holders, a muffled press and cowed citizens, pretty much in that order. Angered by what she views as the Bush administration's "bullying drumbeat," Thomas referred early and often to her own hatred of war, quoting from poets and politicians to bear down on President Bush and his colleagues. Winston Churchill, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Louis Brandeis, George Santayana, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. all made appearances in Thomas' sweeping portrayal of what she sees as the administration's betrayal of both the character and will of the American people and the principles of democracy. "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war. Bush's policy of pre-emptive war is immoral - such a policy would legitimize Pearl Harbor. It's as if they learned none of the lessons from Vietnam," she said to enthusiastic applause. Thomas ignored the clapping just as she once ignored the camera flashes and shouting matches of the Washington press corps. "Where is the outrage?" she demanded. "Where is Congress? They're supine! Bush has held only six press conferences, the only forum in our society where a president can be questioned. I'm on the phone to [press secretary] Ari Fleischer every day, asking will he ever hold another one? The international world is wondering what happened to America's great heart and soul." Like any star, Thomas, who resigned from UPI in 2000, appreciated her audience's thirst to get the insider's view of our national leaders, and she gave generously, in snapshots, though the Reagan and both Bush regimes were cast in darker hues. "Great presidents have great goals for mankind. During my years of covering the White House, Kennedy was the most inspired; Johnson rammed through voting rights and public housing; Nixon will be remembered for his trip to China and for his resignation; Ford for helping us recover from Nixon; and Carter for making human rights the centerpiece of foreign policy," Thomas said in an even, respectful tone. She just sighed over Clinton, who "tarnished the Oval Office." Thomas' mood became visibly more somber at the mention of Ronald Reagan's military buildup and at the name Bush. Again and again, Thomas warned the MIT audience, "It's bombs away for Iraq and on our civil liberties if Bush and his cronies get their way. Dissent is patriotic!" After her talk, Thomas participated in a panel discussion with MacVicar Faculty Fellows David Thorburn, professor of literature, and Charles Stewart III, professor of political science. Philip S. Khoury, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, introduced the speakers. "Helen Thomas offered a very powerful indictment of the current behavior of the Bush presidency in her comments on the incoherence and inconsistency of Bush's policies and the danger to civil liberties of Bush's rhetoric," said Thorburn. He compared the lack of public awareness of an antiwar movement in 1965 and 1966 with the wide public debate about Iraq going on today. "An aroused citizenry can instruct the government," he said. Stewart also focused on the current public debate about Iraq, declaring that it may be a "hopeful sign. The polls say Americans don't want to talk about Iraq - they want to talk about the economy, about education. But the press has continued to point out the important thing. Everyone knows there's been a dance between the President and Congress over Iraq." Thomas didn't let the press off the hook, though. "Everybody learned the lessons of Vietnam, including the Pentagon. In Vietnam, correspondents could go anywhere - just hop on a helicopter and report on the war. Now we don't have that access. It's total secrecy. The media overlords should be complaining about this. I do not absolve the press. We've rolled over and played dead, too," she said. Asked to advise young journalists, Thomas pounced. "Remind the politicians you interview that you pay them, that they are public servants. Remember every question is legitimate. And don't give up. There's always a leak. There's always someone who's trying to save the country," she said. The talk was sponsored by the MIT Communications Forum.

Helen Thomas video from MIT:

http://web.mit.edu/mitworld/content/shass/thomas.html

Rumor Mill News Reading Room Forum

MAJOR MEDIA BLACKOUT SINCE 2/14 EXCEPT FOR RUSH?

Posted By: LinnCiesla
Date: Monday, 24 February 2003, 2:29 a.m.

In Response To: GOP SMEARS HELEN THOMAS (LinnCiesla)

Looks like there's been a major media blackout on anything to do with Helen Thomas since February 14, except for Rush Limbaugh blasting her on the 20th. Now, whaddya think that's about?

Next thing you know, they'll be saying Helen has dementia. We all know she DOESN'T!

-----------------------------

January 29, 2003
Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle
Ahead of speech here Helen Thomas decries Bush:

http://www.rochesterdandc.com/news/0129story24_news.shtml

------------------------------

Feb 11, 2003
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Thomas pulls no punches at literary luncheon:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=SH&Date=20030211&
Category=COLUMNIST39&ArtNo=302110476&Ref=AR

------------------------------

February 13, 2003
WOKR13.tv
Veteran Reporter Helen Thomas In Rochester:

http://www.wokr13.tv/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=7F3676FF-6F49-4506-999B-8FDD43064A24

-------------------------------

February 14, 2003
Newsday
Helen Thomas rails against Bush's `imperial presidency':

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny-brf--people-thomas0214feb14,0,1553473.story?
coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

-------------------------------

After the above, the only mention of Ms. Thomas seem to be of the following variety:

Oh, Helen - We Can't Back Down Now
The Rush Limbaugh Show
February 20, 2003

"Did you happen to catch Helen Thomas on Wednesday night's Donahue? Hey, don't roll your eyes. This is too good - as you'll hear in our sound bites of Madame Thomas with Phil on PMSNBC. She amended her comment that Bush is the "the worst president we've ever known," adding that, "there's always room for improvement." Improvement to her would be Bush "declaring peace" and going home, like (she wrongly claims) JFK did in the Cuban Missile Crisis."

http://rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_022003/content/stop_the_tape.guest.html

 

---

Helen Thomas

White House correspondent
Born: 8/4/20
Birthplace: Winchester, Kentucky

After graduating from Wayne University, Thomas went to Washington, DC. In 1943 she began working for United Press International, (UPI), a news wire service providing articles to newspapers around the country. Thomas was hired to write stories of interest to women. She broke into political reporting in 1961, when she began filing stories about the Kennedy administration. Since then, she has covered eight presidents. In 1970 she became UPI's White House correspondent. In 1972 she was the only print journalist to go on President Nixon's historic trip to China. She also traveled with presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush, and covered every presidential economic summit. Thomas was the first woman officer of the National Press Club, the White House Correspondents Association, and the first woman member of the Gridiron Club. She became the first female White House bureau chief of a wire service in 1974. As her career advanced, Thomas came to be considered the “dean of the Washington press corps,” and she was allowed to ask the first question at presidential press conferences. At the end of her first presidential press conference in 1961, Thomas said, “Thank you, Mr. President,” establishing a tradition that continues today. She has written two books, Dateline: White House and Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times. Thomas left UPI in 2000 when it was purchased by News World Communications, Inc., an affiliate of the Unification Church.