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.

4 comments:

Patricia said...

You are right on Bad. The reason why you won't see anyone like her again is not only because she was outspoken, it was also because of her looks. If you aren't model material, you really can't make it on MSM. The only person I can think of is maybe Candy Crowley. But she's no Helen Thomas.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

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.
~

Glennis said...

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

Paul Avery said...

"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