Helen Thomas

The Society of Professional Journalists's lifetime achievement award that was named in her honor has been "retired" but Helen "Thank God for Hezbollah" Thomas can console herself with her latest trophy: high praise from the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

The former Hearst syndicated columnist was reportedly feted by the "top Palestinian envoy to the U.S... at his Washington residence." Palestinian legislator (and former girlfriend of the late Peter Jennings) Hanan Ashrawi reportedly presented Thomas with an award on Sunday.

 As previously documented by NewsBusters, Helen Thomas - former columnist and White House correspondent for both UPI and Hearst Newspapers - was scheduled to speak at a left-wing anti-Israel rally next month during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming visit to America. But the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Thomas "withdrew her participation fearing she will become the focus of the events."

Thomas, who last year infamously was recorded declaring that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Poland and Germany, was quoted as saying of the upcoming protest, "I am delighted that people are coming together for this gathering, and I want to make sure that the focus stays on AIPAC and U.S. policy, not me."

 A statement released by the organizers of the "Move Over AIPAC" Rally reads:

If you thought Helen Thomas telling Jews to get the hell out of Palestine was anti-Semitic, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The disgraced former White House correspondent is Playboy magazine's interviewee in April, and some of the hate-filled nonsense she spewed to her Jewish interviewer should shame those responsible for ever putting this woman in such a powerful press position:

From the Making Mischief Department, NB reader Thomas Stewart sent in a NB link to Rosie O'Donnell's "Ask Ro" feature on Rosie.com. My headline on a February 27 blog post was "Rosie O'Donnell Offers 'Giant Hug' to Helen Thomas: A Summit of Role Models?" When faced with this link, O'Donnell simply answered "yes that is true".

Some think this could mean she was again complimenting Helen as a "role model," as she did when they met up at CNN. But the question was whether this was a "summit" of role models, meaning both women were stellar human beings. 

Former dean of the White House press corps Helen Thomas delivered some candid remarks Monday on CNN's "Situation Room." Thomas, who last year retired from Hearst for telling Israelis to "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to their former lands, railed against what she viewed as America unequivocally protecting Israel.

On Friday the Society of Professional Journalists announced that, in light of that controversy, it would "retire" the lifetime achievement award that bears her name.

"I could call President Obama anything in the book, and no one would say anything. You touch one thing about Israel and you're finished," Thomas groused.

CNN's "Situation Room" ran a segment on the 90 year-old journalist Monday afternoon, reporting that Thomas, who currently works for the Falls Church News-Press, is pushing to regain her status as a White House correspondent.
 

Someone should inform Helen Thomas that the First Amendment does not protect one's right to honorary degrees.

The disgraced former White House correspondent lashed out at her critics Tuesday, and stood by her vicious anti-Semitic remarks - both her most recent claims that "Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists" and the remarks that led to her resignation.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Thomas issued a bizarre threat - unmoored from any coherent legal understanding of "freedom of speech" - to Anti-Defamation League president Abe Foxman, who had called for Thomas to be stripped of all honorary awards:

As NewsBusters previously reported, disgraced former White House correspondent Helen Thomas on Thursday made more anti-Semitic remarks in public this time telling an anti-Arab bias workshop in Detroit, "Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists."

Jeff Dunetz at Yid With Lid has uncovered a video of her entire pathetic speech (video follows with commentary):

Wayne State University announced Friday that as a result of the anti-Semitic remarks made by the former White House correspondent the previous day, it is ending its Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in Media award.

The Detroit Free Press reported Saturday:

Disgraced former columnist Helen Thomas on Thursday not only stood by the anti-Semitic remarks that got her fired in June but also went a disgusting step further.

Speaking at an anti-Arab bias workshop in Detroit, Thomas told attendees, "Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists" (h/t Detroit Free Press via Yid with Lid):

America's mortal enemy was apparently displeased with the recent firing of White House correspondent Helen Thomas.

The following question was actually published in al Qaeda's new English language online propaganda magazine Inspire (h/t Weekly Standard via Hot Air):

Disgraced former White House correspondent Helen Thomas says she's not anti-Semitic.

"Baloney!" she told WMRN-AM radio's Scott Spears in a pre-recorded interview broadcast Tuesday. "I'm a Semite."

In her 35-minute chat with Spears, Thomas was completely unapologetic about the disgusting remarks she made in June that led to her termination from the Hearst Newspaper group.

Quite the contrary, she completely stood by her comments as "the truth" (audio follows with transcribed highlights and commentary, relevant section at 18:00, h/t Hot Air headlines):

NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory spoke on Tuesday at the City Club in Seattle, Washington, and John Hamer of the Washington News Council reported on Gregory's remarks, which he found pretty bland. He found some spice in Gregory's answers to audience questions. 

On Jon Stewart's "sanity" rally on Halloween weekend: "He's a comedian, but he's also got a point of view. I think what they do is serious. It's not a joke." However, "They are part of the media polarization." As for Stewart: "He asks tough questions. He does a great job. I admire him a lot."

On suddenly retired columnist (and former UPI reporter) Helen Thomas: "I think Helen lost her way. I don't know when that happened..I thought she was miscast as the 'dean of the press corps.' She was a polemicist. Her views in the press corps were well known."

Left unsaid (at least from this report): None of the star White House reporters ever questioned the "Helen the Dean" legend, including Gregory. They underlined it. They only abandoned that position once she lashed out at the rabbi that Jews should "get the hell out" of Israel and "go home" to Germany. There's more:

Disgraced White House correspondent Helen Thomas is having a gala thrown for her in November by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee:

 

This announcement comes a few days after the Council on American-Islamic Relations proudly proclaimed that it would be giving Thomas a lifetime achievement award at its annual fundraising banquet in October.

The Committee's online invitation reads, "Join ADC for an evening to celebrate a woman with a lifetime of courage: The Great Helen Thomas":

Disgraced former White House correspondent Helen Thomas will be receiving a lifetime achievement award next month from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Coming roughly three months after Thomas was forced to resign from Hearst Newspapers for disgustingly telling Israeli Jews to move back to Germany and Poland and "get the hell out of Palestine," this is clearly going to raise a lot of eyebrows especially with all the media's recent hyperventilation over so-called Islamophobia.

Consider how the following report from The Hill is going to play in an environment where the press are accusing Americans of being anti-Muslim (h/t Hot Air headlines):

If you believed the media, you would think that hate crimes against Muslims was a growing epidemic in America.

Just Monday, the New York Times had a front page story hysterically noting a "torrent of anti-Muslim sentiments and a spate of vandalism."

"The knifing of a Muslim cab driver in New York City has also alarmed many American Muslims," wrote Laurie Goodstein in the second paragraph of her article titled "American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?"

Unfortunately, as Michael Doyle reported on August 28, the most recent data concerning hate crimes in this country paint a very different picture than what Goodstein and others in the media have been dishonestly portraying of late:

For some in the White House Press Corps, literally thanking God for the existence of a terrorist organization is less controversial than being owned by a company that gives more money to one political party than the other.
That, at least, is the standard former WHCA president Edwin Chen has set forth. In an interview with the far-left blog Media Matters, Chen dubbed "a travesty" the WHCA's decision to award a front-row seat in the briefing room to Fox News. His objection? "The vacancy was created because of an ideological conflict," and would be filled by "another cloud of ideological conflict."
The first ideological conflict to which Chen referred was Helen Thomas's retirement, forced by a video showing her making anti-Semitic comments. The second: the political contributions of Fox's parent company, News Corp.

UPDATE: HuffPo's Jason Linkins offers explanation (see bottom)

Maybe this is the way former Hearst Newspapers columnist and so-called dean of the White House Press Corps Helen Thomas would have wanted it.

Although Thomas' old seat in the White House press briefing room hasn't officially been designated for a particular outlet, and this might be wishful thinking on the part of the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, the White House correspondent for website, took the seat for the July 27 briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Stein's questions from the front row dealt with the possibility of President Barack Obama making recess appointment, in dealing with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and what he deemed the "lethargic pace" of judicial confirmations. Stein then followed up with four additional questions for his piece posted on the Huffington Post later that afternoon.

Video Below Fold

Over the past couple of years, former Hearst columnist Helen Thomas had adopted a recurring habit of employing moral equivalency between al-Qaeda terrorists and the actions of the American military as, on at least three occasions, she referred to "so-called terrorists" or "so-called terrorism."

In February 2009, after she used the term "so-called terrorists" in a White House briefing, she was asked by Tommy Christopher – currently of Mediaite – to explain why she employed this choice of words, and she elaborated: "Because some people think they’re freedom fighters since they are in their own country. And we can dub them as ‘terrorists’ and their tactics are horrible, but so are ours. We drop bombs on people in Iraq, people who did nothing to us."

On the January 14, 2010, The O’Reilly Factor, FNC host Bill O’Reilly used his show’s regular "Reality Check" segment to highlight comments she made after being questioned again by Christopher in which she referred to America fighting "so-called terrorism" and expressed a view of moral equivalency between the United States and the terrorists with which America is at war. When asked in an interview with Mediaite what her point was in repeatedly asking Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan at a January 7, 2010, press conference why al-Qaeda terrorists are trying to kill Americans, as if to suggest that such behavior was provoked by wrongdoing by the U.S., Thomas responded:

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz wrote Monday that Helen Thomas could have spared herself an embarrassing quick retirement if her media colleagues had “gently suggested” it was time to go. He said the press corps saw her as an “eccentric aunt,” but he claimed most of the country never saw her as cranky and ideological:

But that's not how she was seen by much of the country, which still viewed her as the groundbreaking correspondent she once was, not the cranky columnist she had become. So when Aunt Helen snapped that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine" -- and go back to Germany, among other places -- many onlookers were stunned.

Any onlooker who was stunned wasn't in the habit of watching White House briefings – or reading how media watchdog groups (ahem) routinely recounted Helen's rants. Kurtz noted that journalists went soft on a colleague because they usually stay together in a pack, but didn't quite note that journalists shared the vigorously anti-Bush/Cheney viewpoint Thomas offered:

CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday said an inconvenient truth that few in his industry would care to admit: "Helen Thomas has been saying all kinds of questionable things in [the White House] press room for the past decade, but her colleagues, for the most part, had given her a pass until now."

This indeed is the real lesson behind last week's retirement of the nation's longest living member of the White House press corps: she for years was allowed by her colleagues to regularly get away with what most of them knew was unacceptable behavior.

Interesting that media members are learning this lesson only when one of their own falls from grace. The question is whether or not they'll recognize that they should always be scrutinizing each other's performance in order to maintain the integrity and professionalism key to an industry that is charged with policing government and the politicians that serve our very nation.

This seems especially important given how the same people now admitting they let Thomas get away with media malpractice ignored all journalistic standards during the last presidential campaign and have continued to do so since Barack Obama was inaugurated.

Consider that as you watch Kurtz and his panel discuss the Thomas affair on the opening segment of Sunday's "Reliable Sources" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary, full transcript at end of post):  

Jon Ward of the Daily Caller, until recently a White House reporter for the Washington Times, wrote a piece for Sunday's Washington Post titled “Why we'll miss Helen Thomas.” But Ward also interviewed some White House press colleagues who suggested Thomas had ventured across a line into explicit advocacy and argument:

"Helen had always been a tough, no-nonsense interrogator of presidents and press secretaries," said Ann Compton, who has reported on the past six presidents for ABC News. "About a decade ago, when she shed her role as reporter and began a career at Hearst as an opinion columnist, Helen's questions began to cross the line into advocacy."

Ward wrote that as “zany and obvious” her advocacy had become, he wondered if other reporters couldn't learn something about being a little bit tougher on press secretary Robert Gibbs. Fox reporter Major Garrett admitted to Ward “that until the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico became a major story, the White House press corps (himself included) had often failed to adequately hold Gibbs's feet to the fire.” He explained:

During an interview on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, Rabbi David Nesenoff, known for exposing Helen Thomas’s anti-Semitic views, informed viewers that, up until now, he has considered himself to be a liberal Democrat – who even opposed the Iraq War and supported Barack Obama – but now asserts that "I have to really reevaluate liberal and conservative and really find out where I stand because I think I've been a little blind."

As Nesenoff recounted that he had previously agreed with Thomas in her opposition to the war in Iraq, and her challenging of President Bush on the matter, he now sees himself as unknowingly being allied with people who think that "Israel and the Jewish people don't have a connection." Before being interrupted by host Howard Kurtz, Nesenoff began to explain his evolution of thought:

They’re accusing me of being some right-wing ambusher, and it really rocked my world because I have to reevaluate my life and my standing in the agendas because, yeah, I’m a New York Democrat Jewish liberal supporter of Obama, donated to his candidacy for a year, said give him a chance ... watched all these liberal media, and now I have to reevaluate ... I have to now speak to people with all different agendas because if I was part of a team where their agenda was that Israel and the Jewish people don’t have a connection – which is exactly what Helen Thomas said – there’s no connection, why are they even there-

Earlier this week, NewsBusters senior editor and MRC Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham appeared on CBN to talk about Helen Thomas's comments that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany and Poland.



Click here for complete NewsBusters coverage of the Thomas and the supportive comments she has received from other journalists in the wake of her anti-Israeli remarks.

On Friday’s Countdown show, after having decided not to include Helen Thomas as a nominee in his "Worst Person" segment for her anti-Semitic declaration that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany and Poland, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann included Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace in his "Worst Person" segment for suggesting that it would be "poetic justice" if Fox News were to be given her seat in the White House briefing room.

Olbermann went on to claim that FNC personalities are guilty of making comments that are similarly racist as compared to Thomas’s attack on Israeli Jews: "Wallace thus implying that a far right entity that occasionally says indefensible and even racist things should replace a far left entity that occasionally said indefensible and even racist things."

On Wednesday’s Countdown show, Olbermann had similarly found a reason to include as a nominee in his "Worst Person" segment the rabbi who exposed Thomas’s anti-Semitism, even though Thomas herself was never featured in the segment.

If you ask the media, George W. Bush is to blame for everything from the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill to Al and Tipper Gore's broken marriage. What's more, the media are insisting, it's Democrat Hillary Clinton who deserves praise for paving the way for Republican women having success on Tuesday's primaries, not Sarah Palin.

That's just skimming the surface of the loopy stuff the liberal media have churned out recently and which NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell was brought on last night's "Hannity" to address.

Also discussed on the June 10 "Media Mash" segment, the media's sensitive treatment of disgraced columnist Helen Thomas, who abruptly "retired" following a controversy regarding her suggestion that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Germany and Poland [MP3 audio available here; WMV video for download here]:

BRENT BOZELL: If I were Helen Thomas, I wonder, what is she more offended by, conservatives who call her a socialist and a radical, or her liberal friends who've all gone on national television to say she's senile? And if it is true that she is that senile, what was she doing in the White House all these years? Here's a woman who has spent decades with this anti-Semitic vicious vitriol that she spews out. And here they are all marching behind her.

UPDATE: Kosmonauts upset Obama flack decried Helen Thomas comments: "when has he [Obama] ever kicked anyone's ass? Not counting little old ladies, that is."

Even as she sneered that the Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine," Helen Thomas could easily find fervent defenders in the hard-left environs of the Daily Kos. Some of them couldn't believe such a sweet and good-natured woman would be demonized. The blogger "General Choomin" literally claimed that on Tuesday night: 

This diary is mostly about the smear campaign aimed at Helen Thomas and how right wing propaganda easily mixes with Israeli propaganda. It is a story that people would label me as crazy if I didn't have the facts to back it up. How could such a good natured woman have so many people denounce her without even knowing the effort that went into it? How could so many people turn their backs on her even though she served her country in a way that most civilians never could?

Perhaps these people should try being on the other end of one of her rants before they try to paint her as Sweet Polly Purebred. "Chipoliwog" agreed on Tuesday that Helen the "patient heroine" had been wronged and her legacy of greatness was unappreciated: 

Yesterday, the world lost the voice of one of it's greatest journalists. Lost to the exigencies of political correctness. Hoisted on her own petard.

This might upset some of the Fox News-ophobes within DC media circles, the so-called purists that tend to look down on the highly rated cable news outlet.

As Fox News is purportedly competing with Bloomberg for that front-row seat once occupied by the former dean of the White House press corps and Hearst Newspaper columnist Helen Thomas, Chris Wallace, the host of "Fox News Sunday," suggested there would be some sort of righteousness in his network taking that seat.

"They absolutely should get it," Wallace said on the June 10 broadcast of the Fox Business Network's "Imus in the Morning." "This is kind of interesting because -- and I think it would be the final sort of back payment for Helen Thomas, if this were to happen because obviously she was very far to the left-wing and if her seat were to be taken by Fox News, that would just be kind of poetic justice."

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert on Wednesday defended Helen Thomas's anti-Semitic remarks by attacking conservative talk radio hosts Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, John Gibson, and Michael Savage.

Addressing the comments that led Thomas to resign her position with the Hearst News Service, Colbert said, "Jesus Christ on a matzo cracker, Helen. What were you thinking?"

He continued, "You don't just blurt out racially charged comments on camera."

As pictures of the four conservative talkers appeared on the screen, Colbert quipped, "You do it on your radio show" (video follows with commentary):