Would you for Christ’s sake retire?
Does anyone else think this used-up old woman is a disgrace (if it’s possible for them to be any more disgraced than they are) to the Fourth Estate?
Ari Fleischer is a saint for putting up with her “get Bush at all costs” attitude. This press briefing today was a case in point. She asked if the White House had seen a Congressional intelligence committee report that apparently bashes current administrations figures pretty hard. Ari just smiled and said, “We haven’t seen that yet.” She pressed on, asking about how they felt about what it said. Ari said, “Have you read it?” She said no. Ari said something to the effect of, if you haven’t read it, how do you know what it says? She said she had sources who said that it said blah blah blah. Ari pretty much gave up on her then and moved on to the next question.
And I said, good for Ari. The President ought to have the Press Office declare Helen Thomas persona non grata and revoke her White House press credentials. Of course he probably figures she’ll just die of a conniption fit one of these days when Ari smiles and diplomatically tells her to go to hell, which might be a quicker way to get rid of her (and much easier on him in the press).
Hmm. I didn’t know this; I thought Helen retired, I mean, really retired, and then came back after Gore lost because she wanted to be a thorn in Bush’s side. Apparently she quit — really quit — when UPI was bought by the parent company of the Good Times in May 2002; I assume she didn’t want to work for conservative management (who probably would have eased her out anyway).
The interesting thing is that she was perfectly willing to shill, er, report for UPI when it was owned by Saudis:
UPI’s sale was the latest in a series of changes of ownership of the wire service.
The company was sold to News World Communications Inc. by Worldwide News Inc., a consortium of Saudi Arabian investors that had bought it in 1992 for about $4 million.
(News World Communications Inc. is the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s consortium that also owns the Washington Times.) Isn’t that interesting. She’ll work for terror-mongering Saudis but not for right-leaning Americans. And now she works for Hearst Newspapers, yellow journalism at its best.
Typical.