Saturday, July 20, 2013

The Passing of a Storied Storyteller

The big news today was the death of celebrated journalist Helen Thomas. While Helen Thomas is largely known for breaking into a largely all-boys White House reporters' club in the 1960's, I remember her most fondly for her questioning of Bush 43's motives for invading Iraq:





Helen Thomas was also willing to lambaste the Obama administration's unquestioning support of Israeli policies:





Her comments about Israelis' presence in Palestine, considered extremely controversial, ultimately led to her firing. Personally, I think her comments were a bit extreme (her "Jews go home" bit was ill-advised), but the unquestioning support of continued settlement in the West Bank in the U.S. media is more pro-Likud than pro-Israel, and many Israelis question this policy.

At any rate, my fondest memory of Helen Thomas was her video with Stephen Colbert.

She was one of a kind, perspicacious, often prickly... I am pained to say that I think her like won't be seen again.

3 comments:

  1. Helen Thomas is being replaced by the likes of Jennifer Rubin and David Gregory.

    That is all you need to know about our media corpse.
    ~

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  2. i like the Colbert video, too - she was able to poke fun at herself.

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  3. "thanks for your kind words; think Bush was afraid I would attack in a final question; probably would have. He is leaving two unnecessary wars, an economy in the tank and a nation shamed for abuse of prisoners-." - Helen Thomas to author of American Zen, Robert Crawford, January 14, 2009

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